Sunday 27 May 2018

Fight Plastic Polllution

Too few people care about how much an environmental problem this has now become, or they acknowledge it's a problem but it is too late to do anything about it. I used to be in this latter category.

On social media, I follow a lot of small vloggers who's views on anything/everything has more impact on me than watching the latest big hit coming out of Hollywood/Netfix etc. Amberthest (YouTube) is one of them. Creating videos on close to a $0 budget shows how much passion they put into getting their idea's out, regardless if no-one actually watches it.


I've have always been aware of the problem about plastic bags from big chain supermarkets, living in one of the most windy capital cities on this planet I get to see these plastic bags in all sorts of places. Seeing them wave like the national flag on our tallest trees doesn't faze us, next big gust would get rid of it and blow it out to sea. Big sigh here!

So what can WE do about it ? I know what part I can play on fighting plastic pollution.

1) Avoid buying products/goods that use plastic excessively to contain the item/s.


Vegans/vegetarians I do apologize, this isn't meant to offend but I do like meat, and this is just a typical example of how much (way too much) plastic is used on their meat packages.

2) Take your own bags into the supermarket, don't use those thin plastic bags they provide. In some supermarkets they now actually make you pay a small surcharge if you request to use those bags, this isn't good enough in my opinion. Some supermarkets sell reusable bags (as shown in the image below) and this is the best way to go.


Yeah I know, not too pretty hahaha but it is all about looking after our environment. Then of course you can make your own. Shamelessly cue another Amberthest video:-


3) If you see plastic trash (well any trash really) pick it up and dispose of it. It is not embarrassing. In fact on my regular fitness walks I always carry a bag just for the purpose of removing plastics from the streets. Admittedly  I don't get them all on 1 walk because this problem is huge and can change daily.

Finally to end this post, another small time youtuber voicing their concerns, good for them :-)

Saturday 26 May 2018

Partitioning Hard Drives GPT or MBR

Apple Hards Drives : JK Hard Drives & 1 Apple.

So it is time to do a clean out from all the PC gear I've accumulated over many years. I have doubts any of these are reliable and even if some do read/write I probably would still throw them out. Hence when it comes to precious data you are going to feel a lot more secure buying new, and even with new you cannot guarantee they don't fail in a short period of time.

Routinely Back Up Everything Everywhere!

So now that I have a more recent Linux Mint OS, the moment I install a new HD and wish to get it ready, I always create new partition tables.


In keeping up with using the newest technology trends, from now on all partition tables are going to be created using the GTP format.

Here is an excellent website that explains the differences between the new GTP against the traditional MBR tables, check then out - How-To-Geek .

Friday 25 May 2018

Small Demo fo Burgulus Streamed on Twitch


The fourth day into streaming my Aardwolf game play via Twitch, it really is pretty easy to setup and so far, I've been enjoying myself. Notice how this isn't a YouTube video but a direct upload into blogger.

I am extremely impressed with blogger.com playback quality, I'm surprised I never tried uploading here before. Sharing this on Twitter using the Icon below only displays the URL and not a thumbnail of the Video, Pity.

Minds.Com & Creative Commons Attribution

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.

The Best CC License that suits my purpose and will apply to all the videos/music I create. Read the explanation here: tohatoha.org.nz/licences.

I'm still not convinced using BitChute to showcase my video's. The resulting 480p viewing experience while just passable on  mobile phones, is really disappointing on desktop/laptop monitors.

I've just noticed https://www.minds.com now allow media uploading including videos so a little experiment seems to be in order here. It's a shame blogger doesn't allow a player view of videos originating from minds.com.



Now the player on minds.com suggests it plays back at 720p, I'm not convinced on this either. Finding an alternative to YouTube who offers 4K uploads will probably never happen.

Tuesday 22 May 2018

Mssnowhite: An Amazing Twitch Stream


I used to post Youtube videos by other content creators and haven't got around to continuing the practice since I've restarted blogging, until now. And the best way to start, is with a happy, feel good, type video.


All started with a channel raid by this guy, TimTheTatman!


The Walt Disney Motivational Video!

These last 2 videos were shown in the stream and deserve a mention on there own. The 4 hour 30min video was very entertaining for me, just amazing.

A Twitch Success Story

Monday 21 May 2018

Steepshot & Steemit



As you can see I have become active on:-
- Steepshot, this is an alternative to Instagram.
- Steemit is a Blogging platform that I have already been with but never used.

These 2 work together, ie in order to use steepshot you must already be signed up to steemit.

If you upload an image file to SteepShot, on Steemit adds this image and any comments you make onto the Steemit Blog. Which is super handy.

Does hot linking from SteepShot work ?
- if I put the steepshot link into another app/program with it display image

WhatsApp: NO
- just displays the URL

Twitter: YES

Discord: NO

Blogger.com: NO

- shame

Thoughts:

The big question that now comes to mind, do I need another Blogging Platform ? Should I stay with blogger.com and move completely over to Steemit. My future plans is to use neither, I'm in the process on running a Wordpress blog on a paid webhost server.

As for SteepShot, I'll keep using it for a while. I have no idea what CryptoCurrency is and that really doesn't bother me at all.

Friday 18 May 2018

Cutting and Merging 2 Clips in Bash

Lets say you have a prank compilation and you only want to keep 2 specific cuts.

1 Cutting Clip
ffmpeg -ss <start time> -i original.mp4 -to <duration in seconds> cut.mp4
example: ffmpeg -ss 00:03:02 -i original.mp4 -to 0:33 cut.mp4

2 Merge
mencoder file1.mp4 file2.mp4 -ovc copy -oac pcm  -o merged.mp4


Both cuts need to be taken from the same original video

Opochtli is Now Being Streamed Live on Twitch


I wasn't to sure if this would work being a text only game, when streamed as a 720p video until I actually found a great font that works well. I think having a 60fps upload makes the text a lot more clearer.

Learning how to use OBS Studio and creating a Twitch Overlay with Gimp was a great creative learning experience.

If you ever see me on Aardwolf, it's also streamed live to Twitch

I doubt I'll get any followers as Aardwolf is not an exciting game to watch.

Thoughts:

Looking through what people stream on Twitch, there are some streamers that do IRL streams which really brings up some very important ideas I have planned for the future.

Wednesday 16 May 2018

Discord & Twitch, What Are These & Can I Use Them ?


Twitch:
So yesterday I installed Twitch, why ? well not really sure but my grandson said he streams on Twitch. And now that it's installed he won't give me his Stream name, which is probably a good thing, I'd hate to see him play because I don't want to see my angelic wonderful grandson turn into a demon right on my monitor.


In the mean time I get to learn what Twitch is, how to buy BITS (not sure what this does but I can cheer streamers with it) example - cheer10 hello. For the curious it costs $2.50NZ for 100 bits.


Thoughts:
I think I can use this platform, not to stream games but to stream me constructing various stages of electronic projects. It may be possible to complete a whole project, I've seen some streamers go well over 5 hours in 1 session. To make this work it would have to be done on a strict schedule; ie 1 stream a week.

Discord:
This one I am really excited about. Long before the WWW era, I lived my life online in the age of IRC, and this Discord claims to be similar. I was extremely pleased this works with Linux Mint and if you've ever had a IRC server with a Channel BOT, you can see how similar discord is.


This image shows the main program running on Linux Mint, briefly create your own channels, user roles etc etc. I've even added a free BOT from



I'm still fine tuning this and fast track learning how to use the setup and so far, I'm impressed. As you can see I've added the Discord widget onto my blog, which displays who's currently online on my Discord Server.

Just in case you haven't noticed, my handle on these platforms is JustABlokeNZ

Thoughts:
Really excited about this!

Saturday 12 May 2018

USO Fresh Ride, Destination Pukerua Bay, Didn't Make it.




One of our worst group rides to date, 1 dropped chain, 2 tube replacements, 2 tire wall failures (1 was mine as seen in attached photo) and with the possibility of heavy rain, there was only 5 of us on this ride. In fact it turned to be a nice ride, cloudy, very little wind and no rain.

Due to the mechanical faults we cut our ride short.



Thursday 3 May 2018

Aardwolf: Back into the fray!



It's been a while and I'm still amazed how well I can complete quests! There are some new areas and a new feature which suits me really well OPK (open player kill). With my current build I doubt anyone would be silly enough to attack me.

Todays blessing gave me a bonus instinct in knife fighting, useful for my character.


 Instinct Notes:

* In almost all cases, the over 100% bonus is not a direct percentage. 
  It is also on a curve with diminishing returns. 
  (For example, 100 points of instinct might add a 20% bonus damage,
  while 200 points adds 30% total.)

* Instinct is remembered across tiers and remorts; you only ever have to
  buy it once.

* Instinct is only useful in an ability that you can actually use.
  It is not a way to have access to skills usually unavailable.  If you
  lose access to a skill because you tiered or changed class, your
  instinct amount is still remembered and will become active whenever
  you have that skill available again.

* Instinct is not used on spells cast from objects- only when cast
  naturally or when equipment grants an effect (like Haste effect from
  Aardwolf Boots).

* Instinct can provide a bonus for either spells or equipment that
  give a certain effect. For example, both the Aardwolf Boots of
  Speed and the Accelerate spell provide the haste effect, and both
  benefit equally from instinct in Haste. In the case of the Boots of
  Speed, a player is treated as if they have 100% skill level in Haste
  while the boots are equipped, and instinct gives bonuses accordingly.

  The same applies to sanctuary, dual wield, and protection good/evil.

* The max instinct you can gain in a single ability is 200.

* Only trains gained since your last rebuild may be used on instinct
  (see 'help instinct-trains').

* You can 'rebuild' instinct in either a single skill or all at once.
  There is a rebuild cost of 2% of the gold/trains put into instinct, with
  a max cost of 5000 trains / 50m gold when using the "all" option. The
  gold and trains returned from an instinct rebuilding are considered
  deposited and can only be used on instinct.

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