Author Archives: Alexander Pereira

Lessons on Starting the Podcast and the Rest

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 My Mic Stand. Professional.

Hey Everyone!

Today we’re going to talk about bit about how starting a website/blog/podcast has gone, a little over a month in from “Launch”. We’re still getting our feet on the ground but we’ve settled into something of a rhythm and we’re about to turn over to our first ‘normal content month’ (hahaha, we’ll see about that).

So what does it take to start doing a podcast/website/blog? Well, very little really. Note: I didn’t not say its a particularly good website, or a particularly Professional Podcast/Blog either, All I said was start it. Professionalism can come later… seriously guys we’re fixing the MS Paint Banner, I promise. All you really need is a techie (me), some boredom/free time, a few friends and someone who can harass them all into doing things (me). Oh and GOOGLE. I google a lot of things. While I”m going to go through my steps about setting up the Podcast a bit at the end of this post, nothing here is meant as a detailed tutorial. I can probably do one of those too if people ask but since I literally just learnt about the settings options in WordPress last night, I’m not sure how good a tutorial it is.

First things first, let’s talk people. We all have those friends who are absolutely gun-ho about any project you want to start but when it comes down to actually doing it, they sort of vanish with complaints about not having enough free time. Or they just sort of just dump it all on you. Yeah, those people are awesome guests but horrible partners. Go find your friends who you know you can depend on to do their shit, even if they probably should really be sleeping instead, and rope them into things. If you aren’t the kind of person to harass people into doing things, go find your friend who is and put them in charge. It might be your idea but you need a project manager or nothing happens. Everyone is going to be doing this in their free time and not getting paid, at least at the start, and you know video games/books/cartoons/football are just so much more interesting than doing Work. So find the people who really are overachievers and who’d be interested in helping you, and use them. It sort of defeated the baseline premise of our own site because 4 out of 5 of us actually have our shit sort of together but the friend’s whose lives are on fire are way too busy to do this exactly because they’re their sort to start and abandon projects. That core group (really aim for 2-5) of people, they become your team.

Now that you’ve got your people, it’s time for a website. Wait, it’s actually time for a name. Find a name, grab it (or a version you like) in every social media platform possible [Twitter, Facebook, YouTube/Google are the big ones, Twitch too if you’re going to do games). While you do that, make sure you can get the URL as well, because unified branding is important. WordPress is a pain in the ass but it’s not an impossible system to use, and you can find tutorials for most things. There are other build-your-own-site GUI programs too and maybe we’ll explore those in Tech at some point but the basic summary is find your favorite one, find a hosting service and use it to centralize all your stuff. It’s easier to monetize when you’re self-hosted or not relying solely on social media companies that don’t owe you a thing (YouTube) and it gives you a nice place to point people back to for them to go find the rest of your work.

Once you’ve set up your basic framework, it becomes time to figure out what you (and your friends) want to do. I don’t mean vague high ideas, I mean the a detailed list of the things people can/will do and brainstorm ideas from all of them… and actually listen to them. People are going to tell you things you disagree with, or don’t really get. You don’t have to everything they tell you too (Dad, not everything needs a blog, even we have one) but really you pulled together these specific people for a reason and you should probably listen to them.

You know what you want, you’ve got a basic site and structure setup and you’ve got people? Great! Scheduling. I don’t mean “Hey we’re doing the podcast on Sunday right?” I mean, Google Calendar emails, reminder texts and a content Schedule. Get people’s posts in a Month early (podcasts are different), set a typical time and day for your content to go up. We’re starting small-ish, 1 recipe on Monday mornings and 1 post on Thursday mornings, plus the podcast on Sundays (and up by Sunday night/Monday morning) but we’re going to stick hard to that schedule until it becomes second nature or we get a lot of content. Another things that helps? Not every post needs to go up immediately. Edit things, review things, and Queue things. You want a bunch of posts sort of sloshing around, giving you a month’s worth of backlog if you can, for those pesky times like Christmas and Thanksgiving, when people are busy with ‘real life’. Timely posts are different, obviously (Halloween Ones shouldn’t go up in Mid November) but try to build a backlog.

By now you’ve noticed that I didn’t mention a lot of little things you need. Like banner art, or a podcast graphic, some podcast intro music, maybe event and understanding of basic website design. You can do these things yourself, but maybe you shouldn’t (MS PAINT FOREVER!) and for those project you should look to those awesomely talented friends you have. If you’ve got friends in graphic design, music, webdesign, etc… who’d be willing to help you out ask them. Maybe bring them into the project but if you can’t/they can’t join the project, they still might make you that thing you need. If you got an artist who can make you something and you can pay them, PAY THEM. They live in this capitalist world too and even they don’t usually sell their art, paying them will ensure you get your piece right away and they’ll love you forever. You’re starting your own crazy project, support your friends who have their own projects. If you can’t pay them, THANK THEM. Put their name everywhere, constantly thank them, send people who might be able to pay them their way. One of the hardest things to find is a place to show off one’s own work outside the usual places drowning in other’s works but: EXPOSURE IS NOT FAIR PAYMENT. IT SHOULD NOT BE THE FIRST METHOD OF PAYMENT YOU OFFER. This is huge. We’re poor college students, or just poor millennials who just finished college. We can’t afford to pay our equally poor, but more talented, artist friends what they deserve for the work they’re doing for us, so we have to offer exposure instead. A bunch of them are just happy to do it for their friend as practice or an excuse to make themselves work on something but I work very hard to make sure we’re not taking advantage of them. If this whole crazy thing starts making us money, guess who is going to get Paid for doing more work? The people who helped us out in the first place. If they’re not your friend, or again if you can, you need to offer them money. Don’t expect ‘exposure’ to be fair payment.

Speaking Of Which Give our two Amazing people all the love:

Graphic Designer/Banner Designer

Matthew Jager

mjagerdesign.com

@TheSeattleOne

Music Maker

Peter Scott

https://soundcloud.com/peterscott-3

 

Last, but not least, if you’re the organizer/central figure. Be prepared to do double the work of anyone else. If someone doesn’t come through with a post, if you forgot to harass everyone early, if something goes crazy, you’re the one filling the gap. We don’t really have an audio engineer type person, so I’m learning that stuff. I’m also one of the best writers on the team, at the moment, so I’m the editor. I’m also the web admin. I’m also the one who answers all the questions the rest of the team has. I don’t mind, I love being in control of project but its a lot of work on top of real life.

And Finally, it’s time for the Podcast ‘tutorial’:

  • Cheapassgamer has a fairly decent tutorial for how to make a really professional sounding podcast, although the tutorials about how to use the programs it asks you to use are a bit lacking (to google!). [ https://www.cheapassgamer.com/topic/138939-cagcast-production-faq-qa-podcasting-tips/ ]

All itreally takes someone with some savvy with Google hangout and a willingness to set up a YouTube/Google Account.

Google Hangouts Live! automatically publishes a YouTube video of the Live broadcast with no need for extra equipment or recording software and it’s own built in controls are fairly useful (except when you mute someone and don’t notice because it doesn’t mute him in the call). If that’s all you want, you can stop there and voila! You have a podcast!

Things get a bit stickier when you want to pull an Audio version but even then, it’s a simple matter of downloading the MP4 from Youtube, running it through Audacity and doing some editing-fiddling to make sure you trim out any bad parts (like the start of every live broadcast), maybe add some music and you’ve got your audio podcast.

Feederburner, a Google software for building RSS’s can pull from a WordPress Category so you set up your podcast(s) in a specific category. Point Feedburner at it and it gives you a RSS link, Search Engine Optimization and some other things to make proper Podcast Feeds easy. And it comes with Tutorials!

It also helps you way in the future, if you setup your WordPress site’s permalinks for the category/post name instead of the date and you number your podcasts 00X. But we’re no where near worrying about that (yet).

Some Useful Tutorials I begged, borrowed and stole information from: [ http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/create-podcasts-with-google-hangouts-on-air/ ][ http://www.nateshivar.com/285/how-to-start-a-podcast-in-5-steps/ ][ https://blog.bufferapp.com/podcasting-for-beginners ] [ https://codex.wordpress.org/Podcasting ] – This one is a bit confusing but to ‘upload a file to the server’, you just “add media” to the post, and it uploads to your host server.

Podcast Lost In Space Episode 3!

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Come Join the crew of Podcast Lost In Space for another hilarious? Episode of our Podcast. We’re a little light on hosts this week, stupid Life, but we promise to make it up to you! Be prepared for more than a little bit of gaming talk. We’re going up a bit late because I like sleep but to make it up to you, we start the rest of the normal schedule this week! So Come Enjoy Episode 3!

Many thanks to Peter Scott for his awesome Intro/Outro Music! Everyone go check him out! https://soundcloud.com/peterscott-3

Quesadillas Recipe

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All credit for this one goes to Budgetbytes at http://www.budgetbytes.com/. Heart Black Bean Quesadillas. This should be the Last one of theirs we’re adopting.

So I forgot that Ryan is off for a small trip at the end of the week so in lue of a stew recipe you get Quesadillas! Maybe another Recipe in a little bit.

tsp = teaspoon

Tbsp = Tablespoon

lbs = Pounds

Mince = chop into very small pieces

Diced = You chop the thing into roughly square like shapes

Saute = cook with oil

Ingredients

  • 1 (15 oz.) can black beans
  • 1 cup frozen corn kernels
  • ½ small red onion – Diced
  • 1 clove garlic – Ryan didn’t like chopped Garlic so this is up to you
  • ¼ bunch fresh cilantro – Chopped (Honestly while fresh is better, if you have dried stuff and you like it, use it)
  • 2 cups shredded cheese – you can buy or grate your own cheese
  • 10 taco-sized [Medium-sized] tortillas – Make sure they’re cooked

Necessary Equipment

  • Large Bowl
  • Cheese Grater
  • Measuring spoons and coops (Duh)
  • Fry Pan/Skillet
  • Strainer

Instructions

  1. Drain the Can of beans and rinse the beans lightly
  2. Place the Beans and frozen corn in the large bowl
  3. Rinse, de-leaf the Cilantro before chopping
    1. Personally I would also Saute the onions a bit but I’m not ahuge fan of raw onion so
    2. Saute the onions until lightly brown
  4. Mix the cilantro, onions, garlic and cheese with the beans and corn
  5. Fill half a cup of the filling into the Tortilla (eye ball it really)
  6. Cook the Filled Tortilla on Medium heat until it’s brown or the cheese has melted

Portabella Noodles

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All credit for this one goes to Budgetbytes at http://www.budgetbytes.com/ for their Simple Portabella Pasta.

The Portabella Noodles recipe mentioned in the Episode 2 of Podcast Lost in Space!

Remember don’t put PAM or non-stick spray on the pan if you can avoid it, it makes them feel weird later.

tsp = teaspoon

Tbsp = Tablespoon

lbs = Pounds

Mince = chop into very small pieces

Toss = Mix with utensils without crushing the ingredients (as opposed to blend)

Ingredients
  • 2 large portabella mushroom caps
  • 3 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 12 oz. rigatoni (any noodle works)
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1/2 tsp dried thyme
  • 1/3 cup grated parmesan
  • Salt to taste (this means add a little bit of salt, taste, add more or stop)
  • ~3/4 cup roughly chopped parsley

Necessary Equipment

  • 1 Medium Sized Pot
  • Tin Foil
  • PAM/non-stick spray
  • Oven Pan

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 400F degrees. If you have a fancy convection oven, drop it to 350F degrees.
  2. Line a baking sheet with tinfoil and then spritz lightly with non-stick spray (PAM).
  3. Lightly brush off any dirt or debris from the portabella mushrooms and then drizzle each cap on both sides with ½ tablespoon of olive oil, ½ tablespoon of red wine vinegar, and a slight sprinkle of salt
  4. Place the seasoned mushrooms on the prepared baking sheet (gill side down that’s the side that isn’t smooth) and roast in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.
  5. While the mushrooms are roasting, begin to boil a large pot of water to cook the pasta. Once the water reaches a full boil, add the pasta and continue to boil for 7-10 minutes or until tender. Reserve about a cup of the starchy cooking water before draining the pasta.
  6. Mince (chop into very small pieces) the garlic and add it to a large skillet along with the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the dried thyme.
  7. Cook the garlic and thyme over medium-low heat for 2-3 minutes, or until the garlic is tender. Remove the skillet from the heat afterward.
  8. Roughly chop the parsley.
  9. When the mushrooms have finished roasting, carefully cut each cap in half and then slice crosswise into thin strips.
  10. Add the drained pasta, sliced mushrooms, and chopped parsley to the skillet with the garlic (heat turned off). Toss the whole mix until its all coated.
  11. Use a small amount of the reserved pasta water to loosen the pasta if it becomes dry.
  12. Add the parmesan cheese and toss to coat once again. If desired, add an extra splash of red wine vinegar before serving

Podcast Lost In Space Episode 2!

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Welcome Traveler! Come Join the PLIS crew for another bizarre episode of the Podcast Lost in Space! We talk about food and new bizarre forms of social interaction. We also check in on some of us and give ourselves a new weekly challenge.

Meatloaf Recipe

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meatloaf

Welcome to the Recipe part of Podcast Lost in Space. This week we once again jump back in time to review the infamous meatloaf recipe from Ryan’s early trials.

tsp = teaspoon

Tbsp = Tablespoon

lbs = Pounds

Ingredients

Meatloaf itself

  • 1 1/2lbs lean ground beef
  • 1 Large Onion – chopped
  • 1/4 Cup of Ketchup
  • 1/3 cup of Tomato Sauce (Not Spaghetti sauce!) – generally buy sauce in a glass jar so that you can easily reseal it
  • 1/2 tsp. of salt
  • 2 eggs, beaten (this means dumped into a bowl and mixed up with a fork)
  • 1/2 cup of bread crumbs (you can buy from a store. If you forget them crumble up crackers [roughly half a pack of ritz crackers])
  • 2 tsp of prepare Mustard

Glaze/Topping

  • 2 Tbsp of Ketchup
  • 1 Tbsp of Mustard
  • 1 Tbsp of Brown Sugar

Necessary equipment

  • Meatloaf Pan: It’s also a bread pan but the size is 9-by-5 inch. Make Sure you buy this before hand if you don’t have one.
  • Large Bowl
  • Small Bowl
  • Oven

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 Degrees Fahrenheit. If you have a fancy convection oven knock it down to 350 Degrees Fahrenheit.
  2. Lightly saute the Onions (only slightly brown)
  3. In a large bowl combine ketchup, tomato sauce, salt, eggs, bread crumbs, onions and mustard. Blend all the ingredients together
  4. Add the ground beef to the bowl as well. Mix it with the rest of the ingredients
  5. Pour/spread ~2Tbsp of Tomato Sauce onto the bottom of the meatloaf pan
  6. Add the Beef Mixture into the pan (form it into something that looks like a normal loaf of bread’s top)
  7. In a small bowl, mix the Glaze/Topping ingredients together
  8. Spread the glaze over the top of the meatloaf, if  you need more glaze maintain the ratio and make more.
  9. Bake at 400 (or 350) from 35 mins
  10. Cover the meatloaf with tin foil and bake for another 10 mins or until the juices that bubble up along side run clear.
  11. Let Rest for a few minutes before eating.
  12. Enjoy!

Goes good with Mashed Potatoes.

The Great Lentil Recipe

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lentils

Hey Ya’ll welcome to the Recipe section of PLIS, We’re going to be catching up a bit on the recipes that Ryan has been trying before we get into the new weekly ones he’s going to be trying. First one is the Lentil’s Recipe that Started it All

1  16 oz Dry Lentil bag,  Pre-Soak in water

1  Large Onion, chopped (like little cubes)

2  Large Carrots,  chopped (like logs)

4  Large Stalks of Celery,  chopped (same style as carrots)

2  Bay Leaves – you can find em near the spices

1  Tbsp of Cumin – spice

1  tsp of Salt – …. its salt

1  tsp of Oregano – spice

1  Tbsp of Veg. Oil – I use olive oil take your pick.

1 Box of Beef broth (normal-sized box not extra large)

3 oz of Black Forest Ham,  Chopped – buy a small ham they’re like footbal sized

1  Large cooking pot for the Lentil Soup

 

Pre-Soak the Lentils over night or  if short of time, boil them in water, once water has boiled, turn off the burner and leave them for 1 hour in the pot,  then drain them.

Saute the chopped onion (cook them in oil until golden brown) in the large cooking pot. After the Onions are golden brown then add the soaked lentils to the big pot.

Then add the carrots, Celery, bay leaves, cumin, salt, oregano, broth and ham to pot and mix them up.

Use the beef, chicken, or Rib broth -fill up to 1/2 an inch above the Lentil Mix.

Bring to a Boil.  Turn it down to med. heat and stir it 10 or 15 min..  Taste,  adjust seasoning to your preference.    Cook for about 25 Minute until the Lentils thicken and mush up a bit.  If it is too thick, add more broth.

Serve….sprinkle Croutons, and or Parmesan Cheese  or toasted bread (cut up)

Enjoy.

THE BIG SECRET to the BEST LENTILS….Use homemade Beef or Rib Broth

Lost in: Act of Aggression and complex RTS’s

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Let’s preface this with: This is not a review. I’m not sure we’re ever going to get into that messy formalized review structure that sites like Polygon and Giant Bomb are dealing with. For two real reasons. One: review scores are messy imperfect things that cause problems. And Two: I don’t expect to have time to play games the proper length needed and this site isn’t just about games. So instead you’re going to get us talking about games and pieces we like or don’t. And sometimes these may sound like reviews.

All of that out of the way, let’s talk about Act of Aggression, Eugen System’s newest Real-Time Strategy, RTS, Game and how it shows a coming problem for the genre. Like so many, Act of Aggression . Eugen System’s, aside from being a Bond villain-worthy name for a company is with a history of RTS under their belt, including one of my personal favorite popcorn RTSs, R.U.S.E. and one my least favorites, the Wargame series. Act of Aggresion is a slight half step between the two series, not remotely as cartoon-like and over the top as R.U.S.E. but not quite the highly detailed war simulation of the Wargame series. With heavy Command & Conquer influences visible, the fact that it is a step back from Wargame — which lacked enough of a tutorial to make it penetrable for me, much less a newcomer to the franchise –is welcomed but the game fails in the same place as Wargame does. They both want the player, the lone single officer with a creative brain (well any brain) to manage complex, evolving military situations down to the micro-level.

Think about it, these games put you in the General’s seat (or at least a Major’s seat) but ask you to do the one thing good officer’s never do. They ask you to micromanage everything, from flying the rescue helicopter to telling a squad to run to the next building for cover when they get flushed. In the real world, it’s tantamount to suicidal and you’re going to get good men and women killed. In Act of Aggression, you have to do it.

This isn’t Act of Aggression’s fault anymore than the lack of peripheral senses in First-Person Shooters is Call of Duty’s fault. They’re inherent limitations of the technology we currently have. But here’s the thing, military from the dawn of antiquity has understood that nothing can get done without good subordinates. The centurions, sergeants and other NCOs of the times could be, and still can be, argued to have far more importance to a military’s success than the generals, majors and other ‘brass’. Sergeants keep the cogs oiled and figure things out.

Act of Aggression has a feature that I absolutely adore, even if its just far too specific for me to worry about in a serious skirmish (which is why I’ve been playing against easy AI). The game lets you take wounded enemy soldiers (its a chance thing) as prisoners who can be used for a steady trickle or burst of rarer resources, depending on the faction of course. Aircraft or vehicles that get shot down/destroyed have a chance of spawning a pilot who is equally capture but will run for home if no enemies are around. Healing injured infantry returns them to the fight, a mostly worthless endeavor given the weight of tanks and artillery that get thrown around. But downed pilots grant you a 200 dollar bonus for being safely returned. More importantly, they’re downed pilots of mine and I’m going to everything I can to pull them out. You get access to helicopters that can carry infantry and the number of times I’ve launched rescue strikes to pull out my downed people borders on silly but I love doing it.

The problem with this mechanic is nothing about it is automated. Sure your pilots will slowly run back to base on their own but that puts them in massive danger. So you order a helio to pull them out and it flys over to pick them up, you go put out three other fires that started while you giving the order and maybe start an attack somewhere else. All this while the helicopter has picked up the pilots and is patiently hovering over the spot, waiting for more orders. Never mind that it should be high-tailing it back to base to get these poor bastards to safety, never mind that enemy anti-air is all over the region. It patiently just sits for you until its shot down or you remember it and order it to race for home. But even then your troubles aren’t over, because while it takes time to fly back home, you’re off doing a dozen other things that a cadre of half competent sergeants could do. One damaged tank siting slightly outside the repair radius while the rest of its squadron is fully repaired? Yeah, managing that is your job. Did a napalm strike just chase a bunch of your infantry occupying a bank out it? Well you’d better be right on top of that cause they’ll just stand outside the building roasting to death (or being shot to death, or blown up or any number of other bad things) until you tell them otherwise. Did they evacuate the building and survive (some of them) the napalm strike? Better tell them to reoccupy the tactically vital building they’d just been inside of because they’ll wait forever. While you’re doing all of this, guess what? That rescue helio that pulled out all the pilots? It’s hovering over base waiting for you to tell it to disembark them and then give them the order to run back into your HQ.

Everything in that last paragraph is a lot of fun, I have some other issues with the urban combat but every individual piece is great. But when you tie them all together and add economy, and combat micromanaging and macro-management of build queues, resources and build zones, it becomes more than one person should ever handle. The military has ranks for a reason. Ranks have jobs and they do their jobs so the ranks above them (or below them) can do their jobs. Games like Civilization strip out the micromanagement and tactical levels as an answer while the Total War series splits them into to separate but integrated pieces, and even its far more limited RTS elements suffer from this requirement that you the players does everything. They’ve answered this with a pause and queue order commands but it disrupts the feeling of being a commanding officer when you have to tell your elite legionnaire century that after they scale the walls they should run the 20 yards further along to engage the enemy guarding the gatehouse. Other games, like R.U.S.E. and Starcraft simplify both until the player can grasp it all.

In the end, I think the RTS genre is going to have push the edges of AI in games if they want to play at being a holistic war simulator instead of war-light like chess and Go. RTS makers need to understand that delegation and specific roles are why/how modern militaries function and not try to throw everything onto the player’s plate. Something as simple as letting two players control the same faction and base, something Starcraft and Halo Wars do, can go a long way to letting all those complicated matters become manageable but the only real solution is to give the players virtual subordinates smarter enough to do their jobs, something we’re not quite too.