Making Android:Netrunner videos

Just thought I’d throw this out there. I’ve recently started recording my Android:Netrunner games played with on OCTGN in the very vibrant community that has formed around it. To make things easier for me, I’ve been streaming directly to twitch.tv and afterwards, for the more interesting games, also exporting them to youtube.

This is what it looks like for now

If you’re interested in catching a look when I’m playing, my twitch.tv channel is here, and if you just can’t get enough A:NR from me only, do a search for “Netrunner” and you’ll find that a few others are starting to do the same as well. I do hope this catches on 😀

If you are interested in doing the same thing yourself, it really quite easy. Simply download and install the Open Broadcast Software which is free software and thus has no limitations on streaming (I initially tried with some of the things they suggest on twitch.tv, but all of them cost or are limited in some way). To stream OCTGN correctly, make sure you record the whole monitor (trying to record just the OCTGN window doesn’t work in my experience) and also set it so that it catches layered windows. Record at exactly your monitor’s resolution to avoid resizing artifacts.

If on the other hand you’re interested in just seeing the more interesting of my games, you can subscribe to my Youtube channel.

Apropos youtube channel: In case you haven’t yet gotten into Android:Netrunner on OCTGN, I’ve also made a tutorial video on how to use OCTGN to play, which should take you through all the basics you’ll need to use the engine efficiently and comfortably to play. If you take a look at my games, you’ll notice that there is very little fiddling around the engine, which makes playing online very pleasant compared to the usual card game experience.

Now go forth an run streaming!

The strange phenomenon of gamers finding violence against women in video games funny

Gamers sure love to see women being beaten.

This is something that always leaves me scratching my head, I continuously see videos of various games where women are beated up, upvoted and promoted in gaming fora such as reddit’s gaming subreddit. Those videos usually contain nothing more than a short sequence of a video game character beating up women, such as this, and this or this, and yet, the reddit and youtube communities seem to think this is hilarious, as seen by the amount of “likes” and upvotes.

Not only that, but if you see the related videos in Youtube, you’ll find a large collection of videos simply about that. Beating up random women in video games.And this is not only in Deus Ex, oh no. A cursory search will easily turn up videos of beating digital females in Grand Theft Auto, Saint’s Row and the like. It’s like a special kind of humour for misogynists.

For some strange reason, it’s also primarily directed against prostitutes as well, which raises all sorts of secondary questions beside the love of female abuse.

What do you think about this phenomenon?

So Youtube decided to start censoring Atheists? I say fuck 'em!

Comedian Pat Condell
Image via Wikipedia

First it was the Eucharist videos being pulled and now they’ve removed Pat Condell‘s latest video about Sharia law in the UK. Well this is getting ridiculous and I don’t like it one bit.

If there’s one thing that online services like this provide is a voice for all the people who’s opinions would never be presented in the traditional media. When those online services take our voices away because they just feel like it, I say that it’s time to move on. They already have a shaky relationship with Atheists but this should be the last straw for many of us.

Like so many things in life, they need us, we do not need them.

Without people using Youtube, it wouldn’t be the online power it is today. I can already foresee that many people will say that Youtube is what everyone is using and thus you don’t have a choice if you want audience. Well, like partisan politics, this is only in your head and it hurts you when you do not realise it. You do have a choice, you just have to use it.

At the moment, many users are protesting the latest ban by reposting the removed video. This is all well and good but, and I hope to be proved wrong, Google is too big, you made them too big. They don’t give a toss. Especially for a few dozen vocal atheists.

Do you want to protest? Take your ball and go home. Make a public statement and invite your subscribers to join you. If there’s anything Youtube is taking note, that is market share. If they were to lose 50k users overnight, they might stand up and take notice.

But where should one go? Well, there are of course dozens of youtube clones out there (many of them considerably better than) but that’s also a problem by itself, for who’s to say that tomorrow that service is not going to start banning your videos as well?

This is why I’m proposing you use something a bit different. Namely Vuze

Image representing Vuze as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

What is Vuze

Once upon a time, there was a BiTtorrent client called Azureus. It was the best of the bunch. Eventually they decided that P2P can also serve as a great way to serve content without having the immense costs associated with hosting everything on your own server.

They became Vuze

Now you have a service where the content is not held by them but rather by everyone who is using it. They only handle the portal/library and that’s about it. When you publish something to Vuze, you get to keep it as does anyone else who has seen it.

Yes, Vuze does retain the right to remove content from the portal as well but looking from where they started, I believe they will not be as trigger happy as Youtube, plus if things get out of hand.

Other than that, there are a few other very solid benefits to using Vuze.

  • You are not limited to posting Videos. You can post any kind of file you wish.
  • You can upload at any quality you wish, at any size you wish, at any length you wish. No need to split in 10 minute segments.
  • Did I mention that Vuze is a full fledged BitTorrent application? That means that you don’t have to use Vuze only but can use, say, The Pirate Bay as well 😉
  • Friends and stuff but with quite a lot of extras. One of these extras is that you can share interesting torrents with your friends over a secure connection. I.e. torrents that you found in the aforementioned Pirate bay, or even your own homemade torrents for files you have on your disk.
  • It’s free software. This means that it’s more ethical and it gets very fast improvements. Plus whatever happens, it will never go away.

So there you have one proposal. I’m certain others will have other services that are good as well but I tend to always side with the ones who have Free Software roots. Better for everyone that way.

Youtube has dropped the ball on Atheist heads one too many times now and unless people take a definite action, they’ll just keep doing it, similar to politicians who get elected no matter what.

And that’s my two cents on this.

UPDATE: It seems youtube has reinstated the Video. Apparently it was organised muslim activists who flagged the video for removal. If that is indeed the case, then Youtube needs to, at the least, give a warning to the ones that flagged it and, my personal suggestion would be to dissalow flagging from those people in the future. They’ve already proved that they abuse the system for their own agendas.

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Once again…Ξεφτίλα!

Το παρακάτω το πήρα σε email

Η δικαστής Γρεβενών κα Μαρία Μαργαρίτη, εκδιώχθηκε κακήν κακώς από το δικαστικό σώμα,όταν έβγαλε στην φόρα, παρτίδα Κονδυλίων που προορίζονταν ως οικονομική ενίσχυση σε σεισμοπαθείς, τα οποία κατασπαράχτηκαν από κρατικούς και παρακρατικούς φορείς.

Παράλληλα, ξεμπρόστιασε ολόκληρο το δικαστικό σώμα, αποκαλύπτοντας τον ΟΙΚΟ ΑΝΟΧΗΣ ΠΟΥ ΛΕΙΤΟΥΡΓΕΙ ΣΤΟΥΣ ΧΩΡΟΥΣ ΤΟΝ ΔΙΚΑΣΤΗΡΙΩΝ: Εκατοντάδες ανήλικοι έχουν κακοποιηθεί σεξουαλικά (και πολλές φορές έναντι αμοιβής που απολαμβάνουν δικαστικοί και άλλοι”μεσάζοντες”) σε μυστικό χώρο, ειδικά διαμορφωμένο εντός των δικαστηρίων!

Η κα Μαρία Μαργαρίτη, προέβη σε απεργία πείνας έξω από το Μέγαρο Μαξίμου, ζητώντας την πλήρη αποκατάστασή της και την ανάδειξη των παραπάνω θεμάτων. Όμως, η προσωπική ασφάλεια του κου Καραμανλή φρόντισε να την απομακρύνει βίαια, όπως θα δείτε και στο παρακάτω βίντεο.

Αξίζει να σημειωθεί ότι το συγκεκριμένο θέμα μέχρι αυτή την στιγμή
ΔΕΝ ΠΡΟΒΛΗΘΗΚΕ ΠΟΤΕ ΚΑΙ ΑΠΟ ΚΑΝΕΝΑ ΣΧΕΔΟΝ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΟ ΡΑΔΙΟΤΗΛΕΟΠΤΙΚΟ ΜΕΣΟ, παρά μόνο από το BBC, ενώ στο YouTube η μαζική διανομή του βίντεο δεν επιτρέπεται (αναγράφεται η ένδειξη “Embedding disabled by request”).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jglCyU8TPJw

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Hypocritical D?

I was watching music videos of Tenacious D songs on [tag]YouTube[/tag], when my eye fell upon this one:

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Now, this striked me as quite strange for two reasons. First of all I thought Jack Black was much cooler than this. Almost until the end of it, I honestly expected him to support piracy in some funny way. Needless to say, I was quite disappointed to see that he was actually serious on condemning it.

I wouldn’t be so annoyed by that per-se, as piracy, in the original sense of the word (cheap movies sold on the street etc) rewarded the wrong people, but in this vid, he seems to be against file sharing in general which is just wrong. There is just so much arguments to support piracy that I don’t even care to divulge on the point here. Let’s just say that if it was not for piracy, I would never support [tag]Tenacious D[/tag] and/or even know who the fuck they were.

Second, isn’t Jack an avid weed smoker? Isn’t it just a tad hypocritical to talk about right and wrong when he himself breaks the law without remorse? It is not that I am against drug use (far from it) but this shows that Jack Black realizes that the law is not always correct, and thus he chooses to ignore and break it. No, if millions of people who decide that file-sharing should not be illegal are “Douches” (especially since the facts are in their favor) then what does that make Jack, hmmm?

My initial opinion would be, unfortunately, that he has become a Sellout. Pity because my respect for him and his work just dropped considerably.

Can he not realize that it is file-sharing and word-of-mouth that empowered him to such a degree? If it wasn’t for thousands of people sending each other “that funny song” (Fuck her gently) and “that funny video” (Tribute) does he think that he would be as known as he is?
Would Tenacious D become famous in Corporate America, with this combination of music and lyrics and humor that they use? If you think that, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you…

Ελευθερία του Λιακοπούλειου λόγου

Ωχ παιδιά δεν μπορώ, δεν ασχολήθηκα με τον Λιακόπουλο παραπάνω απ’οτι είχα διαβάσει για την υπόθεση Τσιπρόπουλου αλλά έτυχε να πέσει στα μάτια μου το παρακάτω άθλιο βιντεάκι αυτού του ανθρώπου.

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Liako
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Ρε σείς, τι λέει το άτομο; Έλεος, έλεος ας είναι και σπορέλαιος! Είναι ξεκάθαρο οτι μιλάει φυσικά για το funel και προσπαθεί να περάσει το μήνυμα οτι ο τύπος που το έγραφε, τα έπαιρνε κανονικά για να θάβει τον Λιακόπουλο. Όχι οτι ο τύπος είναι ρόμπα ξεκούμπωτη και σηκώνει μεγάλο δούλεμα…

Ακούστε ατάκες…

Αυτούς όλους που κάνουν περίεργα πράγματα πρέπει να τους εντοπίσουμε και να τους βγάλουμε στην άκρη…

Μάλιστα. Με το “περίεργα πράγματα” φυσικά, εννοεί ότι πάει αντίθετα με αυτά που θέλει να περάσει ή με ότι κριτικάρει της μπούρδες που ξεστομίζει.

Η κυβέρνηση έχει βάλει τα τσιράκια της…-… που, “αναγκασμένο” πλέον, το κράτος θα πει, ααα, όλοι πρέπει να είναι φανεροί.

Μα ναι, όλα είναι μια συνομοσία ενάντια στον Λιακόπουλο και στον ελέυθερο λόγο απο την Νέα Τάξη Πραγμάτων. “Μέσα σε μια νύχτα” θα κλειδώσουν το Ιντερνέτ συνεχίζει να λέει, άσχετο πόσο αδύνατον είναι αυτό και πόσο πολύ δείχνει την άγνοια του για το πως λειτουργούν τα πράγματα.

Το πιο χαρακτηριστικό απο αυτά που λέει

Εαν δεν περιχαρακώσουμε την ελευθερία του λόγου…

Α ρε “ελληνορθόδοξε” κρυπτοφασίστα Λιακόπουλε, ξεχάστηκες για λίγο και έδειξες το πραγματικό πρόσωπο σου ε; Αυτή είναι λοιπόν η πρόταση του; Να μειώσουμε την ελευθερία του λόγου ώστε να μπορεί να επιζήσει η “ελευθερία του λόγου”…που θα συμφέρει τον Λιακόπουλο, και κάθε Λιακόπουλο.

Είναι απίστευτο πόσο υποκριτικό είναι να βλέπεις το άτομο, το οποίο ξεδιάντροπα επιτέθηκε στην ίδια ελευθερία που υπερασπίζεται, με αποτέλεσμα ένα εντελώς αθώο άτομο να περάσει τον Γολγοθα, να φτιάχνει βιντεάκι με τίτλο “SOS ELEFTHERIA STO INTERNET“…πραγματικά αηδιαστικό.

Θέλετε κι’αλλη υποκρισία. Έχει βάλει και τα σχόλια του βίντεο σε moderation ώστε να μην φαίνεται τίποτα άσχημο απο κάτω (Σοβαρά, δείτε το, ούτε ένα κακό λόγο δεν έχει και από τα 6000 views υπάρχουν μόνο 6 σχόλια). Σιγά μην αφήσει το δικό μου σχόλιο να περάσει δηλαδή…

Αυτό είναι φυσικά το καλό με τα blogs, μπορώ να τον σχολιάσω όσο του αξίζει και δεν μπορεί να με φιμώσει όσο και να προσπαθεί.

Α ναι, ένα άλλο ενδιαφέρον πράγμα με αυτό το βιντεάκι (εκτώς απο τις απίστευτα άκυρες συνομοσιολογικές θεωρίες) είναι το γεγονός οτι λέει το ίδιο πράγμα 3 φορές. Απλά ξεχνιέται που και που και αρχίζει να μιλάει για κάτι εντελός άσχετο και μετά όταν επανέρχεται, έχοντας ξεχάσει τι είπε 20 δευτερόλεπτα πιο πρίν, το ξαναλέει.

Ρόμπα Λιακόπουλε, νομίζεις οτί το “Ιντερνέτ” είναι το ίδιο πράγμα με την τηλεόραση, στην οποία μπορείς να αγνοείς τον αντίλογο; Ετοιμάσου για μεγάλο μπουγέλο όταν αποφασίσεις να γίνεσαι τακτικός στα μέρη μας. Ξέχνα αυτά που ήξερες…

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Liako2
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