Want to play games for Cash? Now you can!

When I say ‘now you can’ I really should say, “you’ve been able to for a while now’.

People have known and seen for ages that YouTube allows it’s channels to be monetised and will pay out money to youtubers who have good viewing stats, a lot of followers, and generate good income via adverts to youtube itself.

To qualify you need something like 500 followers, and a hoard of channel views, and good, original content.

A few years ago justin.tv (don’t ask me about the name, I have no clue why it was called that) started up allowing people to broadcast LIVE. Soon, the gaming the community hooked on to this and started live streaming their gameplay. Then the gaming comunity took over, and justin.tv had to create twitch.tv to separate the gamers from everyone else.

Since then Justin.tv has folded, Twitch.tv has taken off, gaming streamers are king, and only now are ‘craft’ streamers getting any momentum.

So, how do you make money playing games?

Well, it’s simple … ish.

1. You need a machine (or two), and an internet connection capable of playing your games AND of streaming video and audio out at the same time. OBS is the tool of choice among most streamers, and is pretty good at it’s job.


2. Then you need to set a schedule of when you’ll be playing … and STICK TO IT. Imagine you’re hosting a TV show; it’s on at the same time every week, so folks know when to look for it. Change that at you peril!


3. Get used to talking to the void – initially you will have no audience, it takes time to build up, and will fluctuate. Get used to the emptiness.


4. Make a youtube / twitter / facebook page for your twitch channel, and promote the hell out of it. Use social media as your advertising outlet, it’s free and without it no one’s going to know you exist.


5. Get family and friends in your channel. If you’re shy about streaming to friends and family, then earning money by streaming isn’t for you. Having people, even friends and family, in your channel does three things: 1 – it saves you from an empty channel, and 2 – makes you talk to people and that is always more entertaining, 3 – it bumps you up the browse list for your game.


6. Pick your starting game carefully: If you pick Mechwarrior 3, no one will look for it, and your channel will go unnoticed by the casual browser. Conversely if you pick League of Legends your channel will be at the bottom of a 6000 channel list .. and go unnoticed.
   
   Also, pick a game you feel comfortable playing. If you’re comfortable with the game it’ll be easier to interact with your audience.


7. Interact! Don’t just commentate your game, talk to your viewers. If they talk about another game, join them, make them feel a part of your community. Your channel isn’t just about you – you’re building a community, so make your viewers feel a part of it.


8. Branding! You are more than just a broadcaster, you are, or need to be, a marketable brand. Make your imagery on your channel unique and ‘you’. Pick a schtick, a character, a theme, and go with it. For instance g33kgrrrlygaming portrays herself as an Elf, she wears a pair or ornamental elf ears, and frequently refers to herself as an elf, Old_Man_Blue is a US Army veteran using his channel to raise cash for homeless and disabled military veterans (a worthy cause imho), his channel is themed around patriotism.
   
   Although you don’t get to use custom emotes (yet – that comes later) make some that are in keeping with the theme of your channel.


9. Use channelbots – There’s a number of channelbots for Twitch that can take some effort out of streaming, especially in terms of channel moderation. Fine one you like the features of, set it up, and use it.


10. Get some channel mods. You will have some regulars (eventually), and you’ll get to know the temperaments of your regulars, choose one or two who you get on really well with, are balanced and fair, and match your outlook, and make them mods on your channel. They will be able to help you in your busy times.


11. Now the really hard part – Making money!
    
    There’s a few ways to make money off your channel:
    
    – The first is to stick a donate button on your channel.
    
    Most channelbots have a donate feature, use this to enable your viewers to donate money to you. The bot takes a skim off the top, that’s to be expected.
    
    Mention the donate button, but don’t beg for donations.
    
    Thank all who donate, make them feel that their $5 (or whatever) is really helpful and appreciated.
    
    You could even set up your bot to mention the donate button.
    
    Don’t ever feel guilty about it.
    
    – Get partnered. This is a toughy. You need to have a lot of followers, a lot of regular views, a good solid branding, and your own set of custom emotes ready for use. Once you have this you can apply for partnering. This may take several attempts.
    
    Once partnered you will have a subscribe button, allowing viewers to ‘subscribe’ (for $5 a month) to your channel. Twitch get a chunk of that money, but you get to see the start of a regular income, and your subscribers get a few benefits (use of the custom emotes you created, subscriber only chat etc…)
    

    There are other ways, but they’re more involved and less reliable.

    
    


12. Keep your channel fresh (new games, new takes on existing games etc).

Good luck!

Me? Yeah, I stream. I don’t do it for cash, I do it for fun.

Follow me on these cool social media sites:

Twitter:- NitebytesFM

Facebook:- NitebytesFM

YouTube:- NitebytesFM

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Phobia != Hatred

The word or suffix phobia is defined as:

a type of anxiety disorder, usually defined as a persistent fear of an object or situation in which the sufferer commits to great lengths in avoiding, typically disproportional to the actual danger posed, often being recognized as irrational. In the event the phobia cannot be avoided entirely, the sufferer will endure the situation or object with marked distress and significant interference in social or occupational activities.

Quoted from wikipedia for ease of copy/paste.

So what we have as a phobia is a fear, irrational in it’s strength, which causes the sufferer to go to great lengths to avoid the cause.

Now, let’s map this across to some common usages:

– Arachnophobia – fear of spiders, will have the sufferer leaving the room, screaming for a non-sufferer to remove the creature from the vicinity.- Claustrophobia – fear of enclosed spaces, will have the suffer pushing through people, clawing at wall and doors trying to get out, or having a panic attack and going catatonic if they can’t.

– Homophobia – Fear of homosexuals, will have the sufferer doing their utmost to avoid homosexual people …

OK, we all know that’s not what we know homophobia as, it is instead an irrational hatred of the subject often resulting in mudslinging, insult throwing, violence, and death.

How we went from fear of (x) to venomous hatred of (x) I am still trying to work out, and we should really give it another name.

Why?

Well, I’m glad you asked. You see, a phobia in the clinical sense is an irrational fear of something that can be debilitating and life affecting for the sufferer, and something that clinically is treatable. By calling these bigots and hatemongers homophobes or Islamophobes we’re giving credibility to their acts, a certain sympathy to their plight.

Phobia as a word or suffix comes from the Greek ‘phobos’ which means “aversion”, “fear”, or “morbid fear”, certainly not what we see in Homophobes or Transphobes.

Were I braver I would say there is no such thing as homophobia, but I’m not quite ready for that, what I will say is that we need a more appropriate word for it and other similar prejudices.

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School Dinners

A couple of things recently have had me thinking about school dinners, so I thought I’d share those thoughts here.

“London Primary schools ban pork”

It came out in some newspapers on Friday that Islington Council has stopped schools from supplying pig meat in it’s primary school meals (not secondary schools though)

The headlines dramatized it as ‘Schools ban pork to not offend Muslims’ or similar. As you might expect, I sighed, shook my head and looked more closely in to it.

The council state on their website:

An Islington Council spokesman said, “It’s not true that pork is banned in our primary schools.”

“It is not currently provided in our catering contract, but if any primary school wants to serve pork we will work with them to arrange it.”

In interviews printed in several papers, council spokesmen have clarified their position by saying the following:

“‘Young children, some as young as four, of different religious and ethnic backgrounds may not know which foods contain pork, or may not realise the importance of avoiding it due to their culture or beliefs.”

“Monitoring each child, every day ensuring they are avoiding pork, is an unnecessary cost at a time of tight budgets.”

I fail to see how any supervision is needed by the school to cover this. If a child is being brought up in a religion that restricts foods then it is up to the parents to teach their child what they can and cannot have – in the same way that a child with allergies must be taught when they can and cannot have. At a primary school age, allergy afflicted children are already aware of what they can’t have, and you know what, I’ll come to allergies in a minute.

So what we have is a council making a very worrying precedent that allows them to censor the choice of the majority of children to comfort the minority. Certainly they say they have not banned pork products, but I cannot see any school wasting time or effort in this time of austerity to negotiate getting in pork from any other providers.

There is, in my opinion, no real reason for the council to have done this.

“This school is a nut free zone”

The first thing that struck me when I saw this at my daughter’s school is that they use a peanut for the picture. The peanut (or ground nut) is a legume botanically speaking.

The sign next to it at least did say nut and peanut free, which is better, however I do wonder if the nut ban extends to pistachio and cashews on account of that family being seeds, and closer to prunes than true nuts in terms of family (much like the peanut is closer to peas).

Cashews, pistachios, peanuts, and other similar items are not botanical or ‘true’ nuts but more, culinary nuts, so grouped because they have a hard shell.

Now, in the first segment I argued that schools shouldn’t censor the food choices of it’s pupils, I will now do so again.

Perth and Kinros council have a document about this very subject, where they advise against nut bans, in fact I’ll copy / paste from their document here:

It is understandable why some schools choose to enforce ‘nut bans’, where it is forbidden for pupils to bring nuts, peanuts and food containing nuts and peanuts to school. However, there are several pitfalls in this approach:

1. It is impossible to provide an absolute guarantee that a school is truly nut-free. The danger of banning nuts may led to a false sense of security.

2. If you ban peanuts, what happens when other parents say they want similar policies implemented in relation to milk, egg, sesame, fish, fresh fruit and latex?.

3. Parents who demand nut-free zones may risk possible confrontation with other parents. In such an atmosphere, the risks may actually increase.

4. There is a strong case for arguing that food-allergic children will gain a better awareness of their allergies, and learn avoidance strategies, if they move in an environment where allergens may turn up unexpectedly. If they are trained to be vigilant, their growing awareness may pay dividends one day when, for example, a friend offers them a biscuit at a party.If they are used to a nut-free environment, they may take the biscuit without thinking.

Based on the above we recommend schools do not ban nuts and products containing nuts.

They sum up there my feelings on the whole thing.

Once you ban one type of food for a reason you open the door to a world of similar reasons; so to Islington Council I ask this: When you be banning Beef for the Hindus, Shellfish for the Jews, Onions Garlic, and root veggies for the Jainists … ?

To my Daughter’s school I ask this, when will you ban other allergen foods; dairy, onion, shellfish … again, a long list.

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Are we attention whores?

It’s been said; “Every writer needs a reader”, but is that true?

I realise I can only speak for myself on blogging, and when I do I say I blog purely for myself. For me Blogging is a vent for … well, whatever is brewing away in my head at the time, which is why you don’t see me blog daily or at set times, I’m here when the muse strikes.

I’ve blogged before about being ‘Internet Famous’, although that was more focused on cosplay, today I’m looking at bloggers.

As bloggers we write, and we take an interest in the writing of others, at least I do, and from what I see online so do others. If people like what they read and agree with it, they’ll share it for others to read, sometimes they’ll even share it if they don’t like what they read when it’s particularly well written.

This is all great and how I would expect a blogging community to work.

Where my initial question comes from is when I see bloggers asking for follows and shares. Do these people live on the likes and follows from faceless internet denizens?

Do they gain sustenance from the numbers of page views their blogs or linked sites get?

Almost. From what I can tell they run websites that hook in to various monification schemes, and their blogs link to their websites where you can see their blog in all it’s glory along with other content they put in there. While at their site you see ads and Christ knows what else by way of other cash generation tools. For some people it’s their living – if you believe the hype.

People who write well, and on topics that will generate clicks will do well, others (like me) not so much. This is why I didn’t go that route.

I feel sad for people who have to whine ‘please follow my blog’, it smacks of the cosplayers in my previous article who would post on community pages “Please like my page, buy stuff from my store”.

What these people are missing is any apparent cognisance of the pillars of marketing. If they’re in it to make money – which they seem to be from what I see, they need to take a better grasp of marketing. Some bloggers do it really well, some really don’t.

One of the worst things I’ve seen was a complaint from a blogger that came across more as a stroppy child getting their way, very much in a ‘It’s my ball and if you wont’ play my way, I’m going home and taking my ball with me’ way. The thing is – this is the internet, we have loads of balls, I’m sure we’ll find someone else to play with.

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Why Charlie Hebdo is helping Terrorists

Two Posts on Charlie Hebdo? Yes these guys have me all riled up.

In my last post I talked about Charlie’s history of bullying and intent to cause offense. This time, I’m talking about what they’re really achieving.

France has been, so far, a barren ground in terms of recruitment for Al Qaeda and Deash (ISIS / ISIL whatever you want to call them), the French Muslims don’t generally seen quite so predisposed towards extremism as those in, for example, the UK.

Charlie Hebdo normally has a circulation of around 30,000 so doesn’t touch anywhere near the numbers you might expect, and certainly not for any useful recruitment tool.

However, the most recent attack, the aftermath of it, and he number of people looking into its history following the attack is now, thanks to widespread coverage, HUGE! so much so that, with financial help from Google, thenext issue is being printed to the number of 1 million copies!

News worldwide has broadcast the images and comments that Muslims found offensive, these images have now reach, literally, billions of people worldwide, and certainly most of France. These offensive images are now out there on the internet – there’s no putting those worms back in the tin, and more and more Muslims will see these images and become offended by them.

In Paris, and elsewhere in France Mosques have come under attack from people raging against the Charlie Hebdo attack. This will aggrevate yet more Muslims as thanks to the widespread hate and biased coverage people are now linking the terror attack to all Muslims.

This in turn is what will fuel these Muslims, some may have formerly been moderates, towards joining Al Qaeda or Daesh – something that couldn’t possibly have happened if Charlie Hebdo had listened to reason back in 2006 and backed away from insulting anyone’s religion.

Instead, they’re now a prime recruitment tool for terrorists. Congratulations Charlie Hebdo.

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#JesuisCharlie? No! #JesuisAhmed!

As a kid, I Was bullied in school. A lot. I was given two sets of conflicting advice on how to handle the bullies;

1 – Stand up to them.

2 – ignore them.

Initially I opted for choice 2, I tried my hardest to ignore them, to let their hurtful words, actions, and images flow off me like water off a duck’s back. The problem was I couldn’t, and I was just taking my anger and frustration as these bullies, and locking it away.

Then, one day, the bullies got what they wanted, a reaction; I lashed out and hit one, and threw a desk at another. As you might guess this action got us both pulled up in front of a teacher and we both got detentions.

This didn’t stop the bullying, in fact it escalated, they knew they’d get a reaction out of me, so they stepped up their actions; name calling, slanderous accusations, hurtful cartoons around the school (and on my books), it was relentless. Again I tried to not let it bother me, and again it wound up just locked away until I snapped.

This time when I snapped and retaliated, I picked the biggest guy, and proceeded to unleash all my rage on him; I broke his arm, broke his nose, and left him bloody and bruised – i short I kicked 7 bags of sand out him.

This time we were pulled up in front of the headmaster.

The guy I beat up was suspended for a time, I had to serve a detention, and on his return we were forced to work together to put on a short play for the whole school on why bullying is a bad thing.

After during my detention I had a number of teachers walk in and tell me, off the record of course, that I’d done the right thing.

As I look back, I’m still not sure I did.

Why is that relevant? Well…

On January 7th this year, 2015, 14 people were shot and killed by two terrorists; two of those people were police officers, 12 were staff at a weekly satirical publication, Charlie Hebdo. The attack was in retaliation to cartoons that insulted the religion of the gunmen. The world was outraged at this terror attack, as was I until I saw one of the Charlie staff interviewed on TV afterwards; “we intended to cause offence” they said. At that point I lost a lot empathy for the publication, and I started looking deeper into who they are and what they do.

Charlie Hebdo was founded in 1992 by the people who were behind an earlier weekly satirical publication “Hara-kiri”. Hara-Kiri was banned from further publication in 1970 after it insulted former French leader Charles deGaulle over his death, in order to get around the ban, they changed the name to ‘Charlie Hebdo’, dually taking the name from Charlie Brown, and the opportunity to poke another stick at Charles deGaulle. They ceased publication in 1981, but resurrected Charlie Hebdo in 1992.

Since 1992 Charlie Hebdo has had several brushes with a backlash; in 2006 the French President, Jaques Chirac condemned the magazine saying that anything that hurt people religious convictions should be avoided, and French Muslims sued claiming the publication contained racist matter, claiming that the cartoons made a link between Muslims and Muslim terrorists.

The case continued through 2006 into 2007 where Charlie Hebdo were acquitted.

In 2011 an issue came out named ‘Charia’ (sharia) Hebdo, which was guest edited by Muhammad. On November 6th that year their offices were firebombed. French Muslims condemned Charlie Hebdo’s mocking of Islam and it’s prophet, but also condemned the attack.

In 2012, timed soon after a number of attacks on US embassies that were apparently in retaliation for ‘The Innocence of Muslims’ film, the publication put out a number of caricatures of Muhammad in the nude, an act which even the French foreign minister condemned as pouring oil on the fires.

So now we come to 2015, and yet another ‘satirical’ poke at Muslims, this time lives were lost, one of them a Muslim policemen, Ahmed Marabet. Charlie Hebdo ridiculed his faith, and he died defending their right to do so.

Those of you not familiar with French as a language probably won’t get the dual meaning of the Je Suis Charlie comment. It has a dual meaning, probably both meant simultaneously in this sense.

‘Suis’ is the singlar of both the verb to follow and the comment of being. So Je Suis Charlie could mean “I am Charlie” in the “I’m Spartacus” sense, or it could mean “I follow Charlie”. It loses the duality once stated in plural (it becomes simply “We Are Charlie”). So the Anglicization of of the French phrase loses something in translation.

Charlie Hebdo and the staff therein aren’t just a satirical publication out for a few dark laughs, they bully and they goad and they cry victim when their victim strikes out at them. They are no better than the playground bullies I had to deal with as a kid, but their victims have more rage and weapons at their disposal than fists and a table. They’re crazy to keep provoking these people. Another hashtag is gaining movement through Ahmed, one I fully back … or follow.

You won’t catch me crying ‘Je Suis Charlie’, I don’t follow Charlie Hebdo, I don’t back what they do. I do feel sorrow for the loss of life, and the subsequent violence that has happened on the back of their animosity.

#jesuisahmed

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Russians banning Transgendered people from Driving … Utter bobbins

It’s been reported in several places, not least of all the BBC, that the Russian government is instituting new laws to prevent certain groups of people from being allowed to drive in Russia, among those groups the transgendered.

http://ift.tt/1yGgW1V

http://ift.tt/1AMFm9w

I’m here to tell you right now, that’s nothing more than clickbait.

The original BBC article was written in response to a news-release by an American publication called “Human Rights First.” This being their primary source, their backs are covered if someone calls out on the clickbait-style spin they’ve put on this.

(Pausing for a second to acknowledge that determined Anti-Russian propaganda in America is a thing at the moment… And done….we don’t really need to dwell on that any further.)

A little further investigation reveals that it is referring to a set of conditions established by the World Health Organization. The restrictions are contained within a document designated ICD-10. It establishes certain classifications for certain diseases and disorders.

You can download ICD-10 if you wish to read it yourself. Here is the link; http://ift.tt/QM0w0s

There is a *lot* I could say about this document, but it’s not relevant. The important parts are that;

A) This is not a Russian Document. This is an International Document providing a readily-available set of universal definitions for local governments and medical agencies to refer to.

B) ID-10s definitions aren’t intended as all-purpose and, because of that, using it is a full and complete reference is unwise. Because I don’t read Russian, I am unable to read the legal proposal itself. But considering that it’s not even law yet, I would remind people that our own government proposed a bill which technically made lesbianism illegal before they realized this would be its indirect effect and (as the whole process is designed to do) edited and fixed it before it went any further.

C) The ID-10 and, by proxy, the Russian law (if we assume it does actually exist in the form suggested by the BBC article which, given the absence of other sources, is questionable) only considers change in gender identity to fall into the category of ‘personality disorder’ where it is CAUSED by other disorders. The easiest illustration of this would be a biological male suffering from schizophrenic personality disorder, one of whom is a female persona. Again, the ID-10 definitions aren’t designed to be perfectly clear on the matter – they are guidelines.

What the Russian government has done is referred to an Internationally recognized, multicultural and impartial agency (the World Health Organisation) when considering what amounts to a sufficiently severe mental disorder worthy of preventing someone from driving.

They have not singled out transgenderism. They have not even included transgenderism. But the BBC has apparently learned what ‘clickbait’ is and the fact that a ‘change of gender identity’ is included, even within a perfectly reasonable context, on the list is sufficient justification for them to spin it and get *you* to do their advertising for them, making it viral.

Which is not to say there aren’t other reasons to question this kind of legislation. But saying that it seeks to prevent transgender people driving is an outright *lie*.

Given that the original article quoting it in this context was American, I will let you draw any further connections yourself.

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Dr. Who

On Sunday the new actor to take on the role of The Doctor was revealed as Peter Capaldi, the Internet has since exploded in all manner of tribute and polarisation of opinion.

Of course I am no different and I too have opinions. Usually you’ll hear the phrase “Opinions are like arseholes, everyone’s got one but we don’t all want to see or hear it”. In this case it’s my blog and ill write what I want. After all that’s what blogs are all about.

Dr. Who fans are a big and diverse bunch, we have 11 past Doctors to choose from, so I you ask 10 people who their favourite is you’ll likely get a dozen different answers.

Of the ‘new batch’ I favour Christopher Ecclestone’s incarnation; he had just the right balance of humour, alien-ness, and seriousness to be ‘right’. Those attributes, to my way of thinking, made home come across in a similar way to Tom Baker’s incarnation.

I have to admit that I found David Tennant’s gurning and facial contortions off putting. I also disliked the levels of emo and angst in his stories, but I can’t blame the actor for that.

Matt Smith’s Doctor was generally much more fun and I did prefer him to Tennant in the role, but he lacked the subtle menace that Ecclestone mustered, even when caught in the Pandorica and monologuing about what not to put in a trap Smith lacked any menace.

Storytelling and pacing is what’s been the main let down in the series since the reboot; most episodes are self contained so the series lacks the cliff-hanger endings I’m used to from my childhood. This makes the episodes rush through what could be a wonderfully complex story leaving us as an audience feeling robbed of the thrill the show should have. It also means that each season is woefully short.

Then there’s the magic wa- I mean Sonic Screw Driver. It used tone just a gadget, now it’s wafted around several times an episode and used by the storyteller as a Deus-Ex-Mechanica. I suspect this is either because the writers have a huge fondness for the gadget, or can’t wrap up the story son enough without alien techno-magic. What ever happened to the companions? Not enough sadly.

Yes, I said companions, plural. The show works at best when it has an ensemble cast … A crowded TARDIS is a good TARDIS. For too long since the reboot we’ve had just one or two companions, bring us more travelers, more people to accompany the Doctor; comedy relief, challenging intellect, anachronism, opposing viewpoint, any /all of those tropes in the TARDIS would spice up the currently dull stories.

Please can we stop putting The Earth in danger – some of the best episodes happen elsewhere, and the show felt more – believable (as far as a 900 year old humanoid alien time traveller can be believable) when it didn’t mess with exposing the whole planet (in the contemporary time) to the existence of aliens.

Anyway, that’s way too much ranting about the show, I should be talking about the new guy. Peter Capaldi is a great actor, best known for aggressive roles or bad guy roles (the thick of it / Neverwhere). I hope this means a return to some simmering menace and calm alien-ness.

I also hope we see more companions joining him. There have been some corking potential companions that seem to have been discarded; Jen (The Doctor’s Daughter), she could lend a military and intellectual companion to the mix; Lady Christina DeSouza (Planet of the Dead), she would lend an aristocratic, roguish element, again with intellect.

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