Somethingfake

On Being Quiet

The world is too loud.

That's the constant thought in my head, whether I'm walking out and about, at a gathering, or doing work with others.

The world is too loud.

It's felt that way for a long time and only more so as I've gotten older. I've heard or read many people talk about how it's just exhausting being with or near groups, how quickly they feel overwhelmed or have their nerves blunted by what feels to them an unrelenting cacophony of noise that doesn't seem to bother others.

If we were to ever meet, you'd find me a quiet person. It's not shyness, if I say little it's not my being rude or disinterested; I simply don't have anything of value or interest to add.

That's me. If I've nothing to say, I say nothing. Silence isn't awful, it's not something to be feared or avoided.

Indeed, I love comfortable silences between people.

Would that more people shared that. Or at least respect people that wish to say nothing.

I've long since learnt to bite back the irritation that rises within me when someone asks me what I'm reading, what it is I'm eating or why I look upset.

If I ever tell them what I'm reading, they invariably say “Oh...” and move on. “Is it nice?” when it's about food and “Are you sure?” when I tell them I'm fine.

I like to think a lot of these kind of questions are simply to fill in the quiet; they don't expect extended, detailed dissertations on my thoughts, quality of the book I'm reading or the food I'm eating, neither are they interested in the answer itself.

As for why I look upset, that's just resting bitch face syndrome.

I don't expect anyone to change who they are just to comfort me.

I just feel that the world is too loud.

Getting into streaming can be a daunting prospect. Not only do you need to ensure your upload speed is good enough to be stable, but you need to connect to twitch/mixer, make sure your bitrate is set correctly, set your layers, your webcam, your microphone, sound levels, ect.

If you want to stream on the Xbox or PS4, they have the tools built in to make it incredibly easy. PC users had to work at it more, not to mention forced to google and troubleshoot whatever weird issue rears its head (and there will be issues).

I remember a year or two ago when a company named Bebo was making an all in one streaming program, which had promise, but it never left beta as far as I know and Bebo was since bought by twitch which led to the program going dark.

Streamlabs was the next one and their program is one I've used. It helped getting past a lot of the fluff of setting up and streaming, but it has so many (great) features that its easy to get overwhelmed or mis-configure something.

So one that was bought out and another that while polished, is still a little much for brand new potential streamers. The only other option most might look to is OBS Studio, but that doesn't hold your hand at all and relies on you either already knowing what to do, or again looking to google.

Having been in closed beta for a while and very recently made open beta, Twitch Studio is out. All it asks for is for you to log into your twitch account in the app and then it walks you through a few simple steps. It took me from booting up the app to streaming inside of around 10 minutes and that's only because I was poking around.

First it runs a test to find out your internet speed, judges the best resolution to show your games to viewers and allows you to ensure your microphone and any webcam you have work.

Next, it shows you options to customise how your channel will look with a pre-made (and pretty nice) selection of wallpapers, backgrounds and alerts, all arranged in a way that makes it obvious what is being selected and what it does.

You could just leave it all set as the app presents it to you, or spend time to change things to how you like, but the tools on offer don't overwhelm. If you want to move certain things around like your stream alerts, simply click and drag to where you want it. Same for sizing too.

This was clearly made for those wanting to test streaming as a hobby or a past time. Other programs are far more fully featured and suitable for the experienced streamer.

For a beta, the app seems solid, there was no lag or slowdowns when I poked through options, changed settings, or when I started or shut it down. It all seems very polished.

If you're on the pc (no mac or linux version yet, the former is being worked on) and thought about streaming, I would say you should give Twitch Studio a look.

It's free, lightweight, and has what you need to get started.

On Fear

“You have no idea what it's like to be a coward.” – Marritza to Major Kira

I think I've always been a coward. In almost every respect of my life, I always took the easy path, or put the decision off again and again until the choice past me by.

I never stuck my neck out at school and answered the teacher's questions, I never asked for help when I was (constantly) confused by what I needed to do. Whenever I did, I felt everyone staring at me. Talking about me. Laughing at me.

So I said nothing. Did nothing.

I had no faith at all in my own choices or abilities. Every once in a while, I'd screw up some courage and try something new, something different.

And fear of failure would overwhelm me.

I'd be filled with such fear that I would second guess myself into a self fulfilling prophecy of failure, and that brittle little ball of courage I spent so much energy and effort to gather would turn to dust.

Courage that always took more energy the next time.

It's exhausting to be afraid all the time.

On Saturday, reinforced by alcohol and lack of sleep, I tooted to Mastodon

https://playvicious.social/web/statuses/102402776631156328

I didn't expect anything to come of it. In the morning though, nearly 50 people had boosted it. Now someone has actually got in touch with a plan for me to edit one of their videos.

I've only edited for money a handful of times, for a streamer friend at her request. I've never struck out on my own. This feels like the real thing.

And I feel that fear again.

My mind conjures up all sorts of scenarios. That I'll stuff it up, that the finished result will be rejected. I can easily see myself sitting here, with the editor open and blank, waiting for the project to start and I'd be on the verge of panicking.

It happened when my best friend and his new wife asked me to edit their wedding video. I constantly went back and forth, tossing the video clips this way and that, all the while thinking “What the hell was I thinking? I can't do this.”

But I did. They loved it. Even better, a member of the wife's family who was too ill to go to the wedding loved it. I managed to do something that others liked. Something that for them was deeply personal. Through the video, others who couldn't be there shared in what was an incredibly beautiful day.

It's easy to be afraid. I have to concentrate, I have to focus on what needs to be done.

Take it all one step at a time, even if each step scares the hell out of me.

I just need to be brave.

I'm so tired.

It seems like every other week I hear of some open source developer being accused of either straight up being a racist or insisting that “everyone deserves to be treated with respect” in regards to right wingers, TERFS, Trump supporters and GAB users.

Dansup of pixelfed recently tooted: https://mastodon.social/@dansup/102331036401358586

“I don't care who joins the fediverse. I'm focused on making the best Instagram alternative for everyone.

It's in our best interest to put politics aside and work together to build a real alternative to corporate social media while treating each other with respect.”

We should respect those that humiliate, bully, harass, threaten and attack PoC, LGBT, non binary people? Who lead campaigns of fear and doxxing?

Who make it their life's work to ensure that everyone not white is persecuted?

No.

Fuck you.

No nazis. No white supremacists. No goose stepping shitehawks. Fuck respecting them and fuck giving them any space to launch their attacks.

“Waaahhh, what about freedom of speech?!” https://xkcd.com/1357/ and fuck you.

“Whaaaa, slippery slope! If you ban nazis who will be next?!” Who ever the fuck supports nazis and fuck your slippery slope.

Christ, I just want a twitter/facebook/instagram/google alternative that isn't run by a person who doesn't understand what freedom of speech actually means.

Run by someone who actively takes a stand against racists and all the other garbage.

That one of my creeping dreads and fears are that whatever new app or service I find and like might be run by a shit person with disgusting views has become so pervasive it's demoralising.

That when someone actually stands up and says “Fuck you, and fuck your racist views” sounds refreshingly novel and surprising it disturbs me how accepting we have become to such horrific things.

We shouldn't be applauding developers like Tusky or Funkwhale when they block Gab. We shouldn't be surprised when decent people do decent things. This should be expected. It's when it doesn't happen that we should be outraged.

But so often we see the opposite. Like beetles to mounds of shit, loathsome people screech about free speech and often mention the “slippery slope”.

We are responsible for our own action or inaction in everything we do.

As someone on mastodon recently said:

“I know devs don't like to hear this but you are morally responsible for how your software is used. If you design a car and its unsafe, you are responsible for the harm it causes.

Grow up.”