User blogs
Inspired Unreality is held every Saturday at 11:00 AM Central in the gamerplus chatrooms at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord. For more information and a link, go here.
https://gamerplus.org/index
Last week we discussed Fantasy and Science Fiction. Viv and I started with author recomendations and then went on to discuss the problems with making Fantasy and Science Fiction blockbuster movies and TV series. And then I totally went off on my idea of how to produce a very low budget youtube D&D series. It was great.
https://gamerplus.org/newsfeed/4627
Next Saturday we'll be gaming at Eclectic Geekery playing a hybrid game around the table and on Discord. If you're up for a relaxing morning exploring Tobbins Shire with Ari and Caper plus Tude the wildcat and Clairen, the friendly bouncy Dwarf join us. It literally takes less than two minutes to roll up a new character in Just Quest and join the fun. We've decided that any kibitzing heard over the wall is The Ghost Of Tobbins Shire.
More here.
https://gamerplus.org/newsfeed/4637
And if you're in the area here's a link to Eclectic Geekery.
https://www.facebook.com/eclecticgeekerystore
Vivian and I have started a new project, Guerilla Livestreaming Scenic Northeast Arkansas. Saturday afternoon we'll be streaming from Black Oak, Arkansas. If you're as old as me that name might ring a bell.
I'll be livestreaming from in front of the High On The Hog mural painted on brick. I've been a fan since their first album came out and I finally got to meet Jim Dandy at the KASU Arkansas Roots Festival. Now I get to play in Black Oak, Arkansas, in front of a mural memorializing the band.
Here's the website for our Guerilla Livestreaming Scenic Northeast Arkansas project. All of our new videos will be posted here.
https://deltaboogie.net/
Please forward this email to your gaming/livestreaming friends and share this link.
https://gamerplus.org/blogs/post/944
Let me know what you've been doing, gaming or otherwise. Join us at Inspired Unreality, post on Gamer+, or contact me directly. We have so many creative people on Gamer+. I want to know what you're doing.
Thanks,
Hairy Larry
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
https://mastodon.social/@hairylarry
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com
Inspired Unreality is held every Saturday in the gamerplus chatrooms at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord. If you haven't been to Tenkar's there's a link for you here.
https://gamerplus.org/index
We had a couple of days downtime on our main page again. This time I was able to figure out the problem and repair it. Thanks to FollowMeAndDie for helping me solve this issue.
https://gamerplus.org/user/FollowMeAndDie
Last weekend I visited Eclectic Geekery, Sarah's and Megan's bookstore, and I played chill jazz piano at Beatles Park.
https://gamerplus.org/user/Sarah
https://gamerplus.org/user/Megantopia
I livestreamed over twitch using my phone hotspot. The entire rig, piano, pa, phone, and streaming equipment runs on batteries. So I can go anywhere where my phone gets good signal and livestream without an extension cord.
Way cool.
Gamer+ post with photo (Thanks Carl).
https://gamerplus.org/newsfeed/4526
HairyLarryLand Twitch Stream (please follow)
https://www.twitch.tv/hairylarryland
Sunbathing In "Low Earth Orbit" on Youtube (please follow)
https://youtu.be/mfRIxCOc3Xw
I don't want to forget about family game last Saturday. My son Carl was DM playing Castles and Crusades. Around the table was my grandson Conner playing a thief, my son Kier playing a fighter, I was a dwarven cleric, my Foster grandson, Simon, played a wizard, and my Foster grandnephew, Luke, played a wizard. Game highlights are at this link.
https://gamerplus.org/newsfeed/4524
Please forward this email to your gaming friends and share this link.
https://gamerplus.org/blogs/post/905
Thanks,
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
https://mastodon.social/@hairylarry
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com
Inspired Unreality is in the gamerplus chat rooms at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord. If you've never been to Tenkar's we have a link here.
https://gamerplus.org/index
Last week Alan joined us and we discussed how RPGs follow trends in fantasy and science fiction literature. It turns out that Alan, like Vivian and myself, is a big Roger Zelazny fan. And Zelazny has had his influence in the gaming world.
And it's not just about fantasy and science fiction books. Many gaming trends follow major media franchises. Join us Saturday morning to continue this discussion or, as always, bring your own topic.
Work continues on Eclectic Geekery, a book store and gaming place in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, where my daughters are bringing both SF and fantasy books and games to Northeast Arkansas. I put up a photo gallery and I have to say I love the ambience especially the exposed brick. Go here to see.
https://gamerplus.org/photo/useralbum/hairylarry/117
I can't wait until I can see it in person. Here's their facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/eclecticgeekerystore/
I am continuing in my project to livestream from anywhere whether busking or playing in a park. I got a nice little battery powered PA, the Samson Expedition Express+, so that along with my Roland GO:Piano and my Acer laptop provide the core functionality for livestreaming off the grid. I have played with this rig at the Craighead Forest Bandshell in Jonesboro and I look forward to streaming from Beatles Park, just around the corner from Eclectic Geekery, in Walnut Ridge. I'm bringing chill jazz piano to the great outdoors as soon as it warms up and the Omicron surge wanes.
Here's my Twitch link.
https://www.twitch.tv/hairylarryland
And my Youtube page.
https://www.youtube.com/hairylarry
Please follow at both links and give my stats a bump.
Help me grow Gamer+. Forward this email to your gaming friends and share this link.
https://gamerplus.org/blogs/post/886
Thanks,
Hairy Larry
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
https://mastodon.social/@hairylarry
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com
GM Sarah is running a DCC one off. It will be fun. I've played in her games before. She is a convention GM for DCC hosting games at major gatherings.
Sarah is also one of the volunteers leading the NEA Gamers Guild and their convention, NEA Game Fest. They had a successful convention in Jonesboro, Arkansas, just last month.
Inspired Unreality open game chat is held every Monday night at 9:00 Central in the gamerplus chat rooms at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord. You can find more information and an invitation to Tankar's Tavern here.
https://gamerplus.org/index
The game tonight starts at 9:00 but we will be there early for character generation and other pregame prep.
Next month, on December 13, we'll have actual play again with vbwyrde hosting.
So we have a schedule.
First Monday of the month we discuss fantasy and science fiction. Third Monday of the month we have a guest or a game. All other Mondays are for open game chat, bring your own topic, all gaming is on topic.
So, now, to go off topic for a minute, Vivian and I went out to the Craighead Forest Bandshell yesterday for live music. I played chill jazz piano for a small and rotating audience. Eleiser joing me on trumpet for the second set.
A good time was had by all. We saw some old friends for the first time in two years. And we stayed warm with coats and throws. It was 60 degrees so great temperature for playing music but a little chilly in the audience when the wind blew.
This is a safe way for Vivian and I to return to our old habit of gigging out regularly. We might get warm Sundays this winter (after all it is Arkansas) but unless there is yet another surge we really look forward to Spring.
I tried to livestream with a hot spot but that didn't work so I just settled for recording and I don't think that worked either. But the plan is to livestream and record from the bandshell just like I do from the twitch studio and the twitch porch.
If you're on twitch follow me here.
https://www.twitch.tv/hairylarryland
I also added our RSS feed to the right column on the Main Page at Gamer+. Here's that link again.
https://gamerplus.org/index
If you have a gaming blog, vlog, podcast, or channel with an RSS feed let me know and I'll add you to our feed.
Please forward this email to your gaming friends and share this link.
https://gamerplus.org/blogs/post/846
Thanks,
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com
Last week we worked on a table for chat topics about RPGs. Don't have a topic. Roll one up.
D20 table for chat topics about RPGs
soon to be a D100
What is railroading and why is it bad?
Sandboxes
What makes OSR better? What makes OSR worse?
Free Kriegspiel
Hex crawls
Megadungeons
Random Encounters
Combat free roll playing
Systems of handing out XP to players
Group XP vs Individual XP
How online play has changed RPGs
Fudging rolls?
The Quantum Ogre
Ok, that's just 13 so far and they could use some refinement. But we're still brainstorming. Come brainstorm with us. Or bring your own topic. Or suggest favorite RPG chat topics for our dice rolling table.
It will be fun.
Inspired Unreality open game chat is held in the gamerplus chat rooms at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord. More info and an invite here.
https://gamerplus.org/index
All our best to Alan and his family who have been having health issues. I chatted with him yesterday and he is planning on joining us tonight.
Are you on twitch? Follow these channels. If you have a twitch channel let me know and I will add you to the list of Gamer+ gamers on twitch.
https://www.twitch.tv/hairylarryland
https://www.twitch.tv/megantopia
https://www.twitch.tv/searchingforgryphons
On Halloween Megan is doing a 12 hour stream on her twitch channel. No spoilers but she has been working on some visual effects and I am sure she will play many spooky games.
Join her stream and follow her channel. Congratulate her for reaching affiliate status.
Please forward this email and share this link.
https://gamerplus.org/blogs/post/838
Thanks,
Hairy Larry
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com
https://gamerplus.org/newsfeed/4270
If you want to learn more about what he does and what he's done here's a link to his Gamer+ page.
https://gamerplus.org/user/robertsconley
Tonight on Inspired Unreality we'll host open game chat. Bring your own topic. All gaming is on topic. Inspired Unreality is held every Monday night at 9:00 Central in the gamerplus chat rooms at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord. Everyone is welcome. If you've never been we have info and an invite here.
https://gamerplus.org/index
At the same link you can see the new Gamer+ search feature. It's Enhanced by Google and it works pretty good.
Gamer+ Gamers from the NEA Gamers Guild are hard at work preparing for the NEA Game Fest on October 15-17, 2021.
https://www.neagamefest.com/
And I've added another chapter to my book, "Setting Up A Twitch Studio, Using Tech Creatively", Livestreaming Buskers Off The Grid. This one's way out there. In the future. Eventually.
https://gamerplus.org/blogs/post/829
Please forward this email to your gaming friends. And here's a link to this newsletter online that you can share on social networks.
https://gamerplus.org/blogs/post/830
Thanks,
Hairy Larry
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com
And that's where I'm at with livesteaming buskers off the grid. I've done a couple of failed experiments with my phone but I don't have good reception on the twitch porch so that probably doesn't mean much. I'm a lot further along with the busking equipment than I am with the livestream stuff.
There are many battery powered amps available. I chose the JBL Eon One Pro for about $500. I am very happy with the sound and the battery life. It also has Bluetooth which I use for playing my iReal Pro backing tracks from my tablet. I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab A and it has good battery life.
I have a Roland Go Piano that runs off batteries and it has nice keyboard action and good piano sound. But since I've been livestreaming I notice the difference between it and my Roland FP-4. Both in playability and in sound. I could use the midi out on the Go Piano and play from a midi library on the laptop. This might not take up too much cpu.
I would rather busk with a good hammer action keyboard. There are some good keyboards that use batteries. Just not the ones I'm looking at. So I'm looking into a couple of Deep Cycle 12V batteries and an inverter. This rig would also run my pellet stove in the winter if we lose power so I am justifying the expense that way. Otherwise this probably wouldn't be an affordable solution for me. There are smaller batteries that might run just a piano and one battery and an inverter would be a little over $100.
There are also consumer battery charger/jump starters with 110 outlets. Again the multifunctionality may justify the expense.
I bought an Acer Aspire E5-576 laptop that has enough cpu and ram to livestream video. I have used it for livestreaming 720p from the twitch porch. This laptop has an exceptionally long battery life, 9 hours or more of regular computing. Unfortunately livestreaming is not regular computing and the fully charged batteries only last a little under 2 hours. Which is actually pretty good for livestreaming buskers. An inverter might extend that life to do a three hour show with breaks but I would have to see how much battery it would take to power the piano for three hours. It could be that two hour shows are more realistic.
They are certainly more realistic for my endurance. I do a two hour stream from the HairyLarryLand Twitch Studio every Sunday and I don't really want it to be any longer.
I also have a USB foot switch that I cover in the DIY chapter so I can even have two webcams and switch between them when I'm busking.
So if I happen to find a busking spot with good wifi I'm home free.
And if not? My phone has a hotspot that will hook to my computer with a USB cable. It's a 4G phone so if I had good reception it might work. More modern phones would probably work better. There are many livestreamers that stream direct from their iPhones.
There are also dedicated hotspot devices with monthly fees for bandwidth. It's kind of hard to justify this expense based on a busking income but that actually depends on what you are doing and what kind of budget you have. You may also have other uses for a high end hotspot. If you're travelling while busking and stopping where you wish a hot spot like this might be just the ticket.
And then there's always plan B. If you don't have wifi and you don't have good reception for your hotspot you can turn on record and post the video later.
Right now I have three dreams for the future of my livestream. We've streamed from the twitch porch a couple of times and I feel like that's all set up and ready to go. You can read about that in another chapter. I am looking forward to more livestreams with Bebop Beatniks from the twitch porch.
My current dream is finding soloists to collaborate with me and turn my jazz trio livestreams into a quartet. Whether they do that on their livestream or in their video or audio studios it's all good with me. My songs are licensed Creative Commons Attribution so there are no copyright issues stopping anyone from collaborating with me.
Livestreaming buskers off the grid is my future dream. So this chapter is out there. In the future. Eventually. Maybe I'll be able to do this and maybe not.
"A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s heaven for?"
- Robert Browning
Things go wrong. Life happens. Stuff breaks. It's inevitable.
My router went out. And before it went out it went intermittent. So I missed a stream.
I checked everything out. I reset the router. I was at the piano. And before I even started to play the internet went out. I knew it just wasn't going to happen.
Fortunately I called my ISP and he helped me detect the problem and I had another router in place for my next stream. But it can be worse.
Way worse. Sometimes stuff comes up and you miss a week or more.
My advice. As soon as you can, get back on that treadmill. Yeah it was kind of nice not having to do all that production work and promotion. It's always nice to have a little extra time in your day.
Still periods of creative flow don't happen all the time. They are to be treasured. Get back on the treadmill and make it happen. Again. Churn it out.
This is a different issue than making a decision to take your efforts elsewhere. To write a game instead of playing some games. To write a book instead of writing more music. These decisions are for you to make. It's your life to live.
But don't let temporary technical problems or real life issues interrupt your flow. Get back on the treadmill.
There are some related issues. Sometimes you have downtime that doesn't affect the stream but hinders some other aspect of your work flow.
After my ISP and I determined that my router was bad I went and pulled another router off the back wall of my house where it sprays wifi out to the icosahedron. I replaced my router with this router (thanks Megan) and we had internet back. Except for one thing.
For my network setup I use the DD-WRT firmware because it supports virtual LANs. I have one LAN on 192.168.1.1 and another LAN on 192.168.2.1. The first is for our daily internet use, wired and wifi computers and other devices that need to connect to the internet. The second is for my web servers, the ones that host hairylarryland.com and hairylarry.rocks. There's a firewall. It's a security thing.
Unfortunately the router I pulled of the back wall doesn't support DD-WRT. So I ordered another, even more up to date router, that does support DD-WRT. Which means a weeks downtime on my servers.
So I can't post to hairylarryland.com and even worse my peertube instance runs on hairylarry.rocks. So it's part of my workflow to post to these sites and I can't so I have to devise workarounds to post my videos and promote them on time. I can still upload to the Live Music Archive and Youtube. I can still promote the Youtube videos but I can't promote the playlists which live on peertube.
And then when I get my new router in, burn DD-WRT to the firmware, and configure it I will have to play catch up.
Sometimes playing catch up will hit you in the back of the head. I played my Sunday stream just before everything went haywire. I missed my Tuesday stream. Then after I patched things together I played my Thursday stream and I logged my songs.
When I went to edit the videos I checked my Sunday stream for the notes.txt file and guess what? I never made these 10 videos. I logged them. Things went haywire. And I got off my procedure.
So instead of having 5 videos to edit I had 15. That's when you really have to buckle down. It's possible to catch up. I did it. It really helped that I was familiar with my work flow. I have to admit I spent less time on some of the videos than I would have if I wasn't playing catch up.
So here's your executive summary.
Technical problems or life issues. Get back on the treadmill.
Missed part of the workflow for a short period. Catch up.
The most important thing, however, is right now going forward. The essence of maintaining your creative flow is to absorb yourself in your project and to just do it. The most important stuff is the stuff you are working on right now.
Or, whatever you want to talk about. All gaming is on topic. Inspired Unreality is held every Monday night in the gamerplus chatrooms at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord. Never been? We've got an invitation for you here.
https://gamerplus.org/index
So, let me give Alan a plug. He's got a game called The Chronicles of Ember. Here's his link. Reach out to him and he will be glad to let you know all about it.
https://gamerplus.org/user/Alan
My granddaughter Liz wants me to remind you that she's awesome. She also joins us sometimes on Inspired Unreality.
https://gamerplus.org/user/SearchingForGyphons
I've been working on promoting my twitch stream so here goes. If you're on twitch please Follow.
https://www.twitch.tv/hairylarryland
If you want to give my chill jazz piano a listen I have a page of playlists here.
https://peertube.hairylarry.rocks/video-channels/twitch/video-playlists
And I set up a blog inviting collaboration with songs and scripts that I think will help guest musicians. I have my videos available for download without recompression so twitch streamers can use them as backing tracks while they solo over them.
https://minizines.cc/collaborate/
I am thinking of moving this over to collaborate.hairylarryland.com if I can figure that out.
All of my songs are licensed Creative Commons Attribution so you can use them on your podcast, vlog, game, or movie.
Are you on twitch? Let me know. I love hearing from you.
Hairy Larry
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
hairylarry@curators.mixremix.cc
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com
Like workflow documentation isn't sexy. But also like workflow documentation is very important in any technical creative endeavor. Instead of waxing on about the joy of documentation I will include my Post Production and Upload document. Then at the end of the post I will address a few issues that the document raises.
HairyLarryLand Twitch Videos
Post Production And Upload Document
---
Log the show noting the songs in order.
Include song title, start time, end time, and other notes.
Star songs for video production. Three stars for extra promotion.
The show is logged from the twitch website so I am also doing quality control on the stream.
Produce videos of the starred songs in Openshot.
The assets are Title, Credits, and one or two clips.
Load a previously edited video as a starting point.
Save all the videos and the hard drive source recording in a dated folder, YYYY-MM-DD.
Videos are saved as song_name-YYYY-MM-DD.
After rendering each video I do a full viewing for pre upload quality control. I have found problems but even when there are no real problems I benefit educationally by another close viewing of my best performances.
Rename the videos adding NN_ as a prefix numbering the videos in playlist order. The playlist of all the videos produced for a certain date is a document of my performance on the twitch stream.
Take a screen shot from the first video and save it in the same folder as the videos. This is for promotion on the Live Music Archive and anywhere a photo is needed.
Use VLC to create mp3 audio files of each video.
This is done as a batch using Open Multiple Files and Convert.
Rename the mp3 files artist-album_title-NN_song_title where the album title is the date performed.
I do this using Thunar bulk rename which makes it easy.
Normalize the mp3 files with MP3DirectCut.
Make the song list in list.txt.
I do this by executing ls 0*.mp4 > list.txt in a bash shell and then editing the file with two search and replaces and manual editing when needed.
Make the notes.txt file for the Live Music Archive upload.
Copy the last show's notes.txt to the current folder and edit it changing the date and the playlist.
I now have all the assets ready for my file uploads.
Upload the mp3 files, notes.txt and the screenshot to the Live Music Archive.
The item ID is hlYYYY-MM-DD because this is recommended. Then the link will be like archive.org/details/hl2012-06-29.
Add the songs to my KGPL on demand internet radio station, HairyLarryLand Livestreams, at kgpl.org. I use a program I wrote to make it easy to add an entire concert. I also wrote KGPL and KGPL is GPL.
Upload the mp4 files and notes.txt to another item on the live music archive.
I use hlYYYY-MM-DD.video for my video link.
The mp3 files upload fast. The mp4 videos take longer.
At peertube.hairylarry.rocks create a playlist for the performance.
The playlist is called twitch.tv/hairylarryland June 27, 2021 with the date corrected.
Upload the videos to peertube one at a time.
I use a song.txt template for the song information so I only have to correct the date and then search and replace on the song title for each song.
I always add tags to peertube and the Live Music Archive. jazz, blues, piano, hairylarryland, twitch, livestream, etc.
After the video is uploaded add the link to the description and add the song to the playlist.
After all the songs are uploaded check the playlist
https://peertube.hairylarry.rocks/
Create a folder on the HairyLarryLand Nextcloud for the performance date.
Add the mp3 files and mp4 files to Nextcloud for download by collaborators and others. Also upload notes.txt and the screenshot. I can share these files by sending a link and I also include the link in the peertube descriptions. Create a markdown text file for each mp4 file and copy and paste the peertube description to that file.
https://hairylarryland.com/nextcloud/index.php/s/Z9RFW4QS6XGa3qo
All of this seems like a lot but it actually goes pretty fast and much of the time consuming part is unattended. Start the upload. After it's done do the next thing. I manage to keep up and I do three livestreams a week for 4-5 hours of video content total. I have streamlined this workflow to make this possible.
Promote the songs on Youtube, the fediverse, other social networks, websites, and blogs using the song links, playlist links, and download links.
Additional notes, issues not part of but raised by the procedure above.
---
Licensing - I license my songs Creative Commons Attribution which means anyone can use my songs in their projects as long as they include me in the credits. That's just me. It's what I do. Make stuff and give it away. When you make your decision about licensing I suggest you read through the information provided at the Creative Commons website. All Rights Reserved may not be the best choice for you.
Live Music Archive - I perform livestream concerts so the Live Music Archive works for me. If you are doing game streams, actual play, vlogs, cooking, or DIY archive.org also has a Community Video area which would probably be better for you. The Internet Archive is a library. Their service is free. They have embed code so you can share easily. They encourage sharing items on their site on other websites. All around double plus good.
https://archive.org/details/etree
https://archive.org/details/opensource_movies
Servers - Ok, I'm a computer geek. I did games and music before computers but computers were my career and they remain my hobby. I realize not everyone runs their own internet servers. So I recommend using archive.org as your primary server and then using Youtube and Tumblr or other web platforms for your daily updates and your pretty face. I also recommend the fediverse, programs like Mastodon, Friendica, Funkwhale, and Peertube. With these programs you can set up your own server but you don't have to. There are many fediverse instances with an existing lean to your area of interest that would be glad to have you participate.
If you want to run your own server I use two. The first is based on the famous LAMP stack, linux, apache, mysql, php. The second runs Yunohost.
Google lamp stack.
Best of luck in all your creatives endeavors.
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