This will probably be a bit of a controversial blog – at least for me – but I’m going to talk about YouTube partnerships.

As you might probably already know, my own YouTube account has the monetization feature enabled on it. I presume I got it  from some sort of automated system seeing as I never actually applied for anything, and the circumstances for getting it is unknown yet.

Now recently I have been noticing a few of the gaming people I subscribe to, who have similar sub counts, have been starting to get partnerships, from whatever content network they signed up to. While I’m not attempting to be a bah humbug about it, I do tend to wonder sometimes why everyone else is getting accepted to these things and not me – especially when I tend to consider that I make a lot of high video quality videos and have put a decent amount of investment into them.

I also want to talk about the partnership guidelines that the various content networks put on people looking to try and get partnership from them. Very recently I noticed that Yeousch changed their requirements to be 1,500 subscribers – but the part that irks me is that they only have a video view count requirement of 75k. I find a view count like that to be very low indeed. By comparison, my sub count of somewhere over 900 (it’s hard to give an exact number given the fluctuations and the impending drop from YouTube’s recent account purging) is now only two-thirds of the sub requirement, yet my view count is now nearing one million total views. Every place these days seems to always care only about sub counts and never about any of the other metrics.

However, submission guidelines for these various networks is rather obnoxious. Machinima (for Respawn related videos) force you to submit to their “Respawn Army” Facebook application, and hope that you get enough “bumps” for them to notice it – so it’s basically luck of the draw unless you have a lot of friends on the service; and Yeousch allow you to submit one video a week using the form on their website (when logged in), but you don’t get that capability unless you are active on the forums and, well, the Yeousch forums are filled with 13-year-olds who have no idea how to compose themselves, or spell and use correct grammar. Heck, I’d go so far as to say that the Yeousch forums are worse than the Xbox.com forums.

Recently though, acquiring and keeping subscribers has been harder, firstly following the loss of subscribers from the account purge (everyone dropped on average 3%), and also the new home page and channels make it easier to lose subs and harder to gain subs. It makes me wonder how some people can acquire subscribers so quickly from scratch.

I suppose it must boil down to the whole aspect of knowing someone popular to get a “buff” from their popularity. Getting even a brief mention by someone popular would generally knock up your sub count by a fair notch. It’s almost like YouTube’s version of nepotism…

And one final thing I want to mention is how people involved with the content networks on social media only seem to care about the people on their network and ignore everyone else. I’ve seen this with a fair few Machinima related people on Twitter. Getting their attention is nigh impossible unless someone who is already involved with Machinima mentions you in a tweet, which is a pain especially when sometimes these people tweet things to indicate that they are looking for new creators to partner.

I probably wouldn’t have this harsh of a view on the subject if it wasn’t for everyone else I can compare to getting this…

So, I went off to the MyMeteor website to send a web text in reply to a text I just received on my mobile. Generally when I’m at home, or otherwise near an available computer, I send a web text to save myself the 12c that I may otherwise need at some point, and it also helps to extend the length of time before I have to top up again – generally a single €20 top up will last me at least a few months.

Upon the page loading, I noticed that it had been given a little facelift, with a nice fresher-looking login screen.

After getting in, I noticed a myriad of new links on the left-hand side, and one which piqued my interest long enough to delay me sending my text for a while, was this “My Usage” tab. Inside was basically a breakdown of all my calls and texts, similar to what you would get on a bill. It definitely reaffirmed the fact that I don’t actually use my phone very much!

However, I began to notice the charges in my usage history were not adding up too well with the advertised 29c a minute anytime to any network or landline plan I’m supposedly on.

Read the rest of this post…

So, much earlier this morning when I went to just randomly watch a stream over on NGame.tv, I was greeted with a very large and red error message:

NGame, flagged...?

When the bloody fuck did that happen? I had been watching the site without any problems 3 hours before that and got nothing in my way. A quick look on Twitter shows that other had been experiencing the issue too. Since I have faith in Avast, I went ahead anyway and had no issues at all.

I will point out that at this point in time, the Safe Browsing diagnostic page for NGame was completely clean, nothing mentioned.

Fast-forward to about an hour ago, and…

Say wha?

Jesus, where the hell did that come from. But on further reading I notice something else – IT’S CLAIMING MY SITE IS INFECTED NOW TOO?!?!?!

Sure enough, I go to visit my own website, and I’m greeted by the exact same big red error page. And the diagnostic for me:

...for fuck's sake.

Upon checking my Google Webmaster Tools, I was told that the page on my site in which I embed my NGame channel page was what had caused my site to be flagged also – bearing in mind they said nothing about just the physical stream video itself on my homepage – so I went to go file for a malware review after privatisation of that page until this issue blows over…

EXCEPT THERE’S NO FUCKING LINK ANYWHERE TO BE FOUND.

As they claim: “Very rarely, it can take up to a day for malware warnings (and links to the malware review request form) to be visible in Webmaster Tools after your search has been flagged in search results. If you don’t see a warning in Webmaster Tools, but your site is flagged, please check back later.”

Searching around for other instance like this show that this is the complete opposite of “very rare”, rather it’s more of a “happens all the fucking time”.

Moral of the story? Google is shit. Go disable this stuff in Options -> Under the Bonnet -> Privacy -> Uncheck “Enable phishing and malware protection”. And then go download Avast, which has been a hell of a lot more use than this browser “feature” has.

Sometimes I do forget that I have a blog sitting around that I can update with goings-on. Problem is usually that there goings-on aren’t really very interesting or worth blogging about.

Not much has really gone on over the past few weeks. I’m still making my YouTube videos, doing a lot of streaming over on NGame, and getting pissed and annoyed with a few people as always. The NASCAR, F1 and IndyCars have also sucked away a fair few hours.

More recently however, there has also been a couple of cases of conflict in areas.

Read the rest of this post…

After yesterday, I think I’m going to start echoing my fellow Commuting and Transport Boardsies in dubbing Dublin Bus’ restructuring of their routes and timetables as “Network They Wrecked“.

While I thankfully haven’t had to rely much on the bus service since the train line opened – which by the way has always been pretty much on time, no sudden cancellations, or instance of just plain not operating – I did hear quite a few horror stories, including numerous tweets from Elly and George over the snowy period in which DB were too scared to send the 25B’s to Adamstown – i.e. their only bus service – as well as other stories on Boards of buses not turning up for an hour, 39A’s stopping in the City Centre for no reason and no notice to passengers, and some routes just not running at all owing to a lack of passengers.

Yesterday, I had the misfortune to fall foul to an instance of a bus just plain not bothering to run at all. The plan was to leave the village on the 1402 departure of the 270 to get into the Blanch Centre for about half two, in absolutely plenty of time to meet up with a few friends in Leisureplex for 3 (off topic a bit, but since when has the Plex been free entry? I’m surprised they’ve stopped being bloody gits in that sense…). All seemed grand, so out of the house about half one, down to the village for a quarter to, into Spar for about five minutes for lunch, and then across to the terminus by ten to.

Now it was a bloody cold day, and I hadn’t exactly tried to dress for the weather as: 1. There was to be a lot of physical activity with my friends when I got there; 2. I wasn’t exactly planning on having to wait on a bus that long; 3. It wasn’t really all that long of a walk from the bus stops to the places I needed to go to.

Two o’clock comes and goes with no sign of an arriving bus. As does 1405, 1410, 1415… At this point it’s started to shower slightly, so I trudge down to the second bus stop on the route since it actually has a bus shelter – and on the way not even a bus waiting in the set down area on the way into the village. 1420, 1425… And now arrives a normal 70 – obviously the 1330 departure from town. But wait, still no 270, which was supposed to have left the Centre at 1332 and been back there for 1432 to leave again? Fuck’s sake…

1435, the normal 70 is leaving the village, and given how close we’re getting to the meeting time, I have no choice but to get it down to the very end of Littlepace, then walk through to Huntstown to wait for a 39 to drop me down to the Centre.

And yet, on the way back home after all of this, the 1832 from the Centre was running no problems, having been in the set down area at the Centre since about 1820.

I am going to e-mail DB to complain about this, but in reality, what sort of thing is that going to accomplish? Are they going to reprimand the driver? Nope. Are they going to apologise? Doubt it. Are they going to possibly blame me? Maybe. Are they going to bin it? Almost guaranteed.

Oh, how I fucking hate them. Particularly when it’s the kind of crash/hang/lockup/whatever that almost no-one else gets and there is no viable solution available online to fix the problem.

Mainly this issue affects Source engine games, in particular Left 4 Dead 2 and Team Fortress 2. It’s an issue that really irks me as I can’t stop it, it just happens randomly through no fault of my own, and it’s not very clear what I’m supposed to do to alleviate it.

It’s an odd problem to describe, but I’m going to try:

• Upon starting to play whatever sound, game locks up, loops the last half-second of sound and freezes the game.
• Sound then loops through the same half-second of audio for a few seconds, sometimes changing what is looping while my screen is now black while it reloads.
• About 5-10 seconds later the game comes back, and hurriedly catches up to where it’s supposed to be. However sometimes upon coming out of the crash, it crashes again.
• On checking my Process Explorer, I see that before the game crashes it is using over 1GB of RAM. After BOTH my screens reload (that is to say when it crashes it locks up both the game and my other screen), I find it’s RAM usage down to under 700MB, and before it works again, the RAM usage climbs back up steadily to what it was at.

I really am stumped as to what it causing this. I recently updated fucking everything, including graphics drivers, audio drivers, verified game files, adding a page file to the drive that the games run from, disabled Windows Aero while it’s running… And still.

Also, when trying to enjoy just a little bit of GRID, I find it happening there too, but a little bit different: On crash the sound doesn’t loop, and a few seconds later the game comes back having not paused at all, so I’ve still continued in whatever direction at whatever speed for a few seconds, and when the screen comes back it’s very drained of colour and massively bright until I pause the game at which it returns to normal.

Fuck’s sake, why can’t this shit just fucking work like it’s supposed to…

I don’t know what the hell it was with today, but ever just seemed to go completely fucking wrong.

• Shower cubicle leaking even more than before, now affecting downstairs.
• An Post apparently not even bothering to deliver a massively huge parcel containing two pictures, it being so big it wouldn’t even fit in the car and so the boot had to be left hanging open with my sister squashed in behind my seat and the picture.
• Finding the hammer that was supposed to be in the cutlery drawer in the toolbox with the other hammer. When sliding the toolbox out to get it, something fell in behind it and so when having to take everything out of the cupboard to lift the thing to slide the toolbox back in – which I think was the massive extension cord – something fell out and left a huge gash in my left foot.
• The last Lucozade bottle of the pack, after my sister had been at them getting one for herself, practically exploding on me at my desk.
• While attempting to remove the address from the parcel to prepare for recycling, after removing the bit that was taped on, to find a part-written address underneath on the main layer.
• A very weird dream in which all of a sudden my relationship with the rest of the UKCS TF2 admin team takes a massive nose-dive after I join a game around half 9 in the evening, spawn as Pyro and literally 2 seconds later die to a Sniper headshot, before uttering “What the flying FUCK?” in the presence of Funky, Odgor and someone else, causing them all to suddenly turn on me. Even this one doesn’t make sense to me.
• Going to bed before 11 after almost falling asleep while watching another one of my YouTube subscriptions, finding myself lying awake in bed at half 3, and unable to fall back asleep for the next hour, hence me getting up and finishing this off.

FML

Well it’s been an interesting day, that’s for sure. Not much really happened, but there are two major things that really were the centre point of the day that I want to highlight.

Read the rest of this post…

So it has very recently come to my attention that someone in After Hours on boards wrote up something which grabbed the attention of the Redbrick crowd and others, and from which I managed to find it.

I’m not going to post the link here, because the entire thing is purely fabricated, maybe for comedic effect, but the point still stands is that what is written is libellous towards me.

I’m aware that I’ve never been the best people person during my life, it is something that I’ve had to work on since a young age, and only a few short years ago did I properly find out the cause and have it officially diagnosed. So there have been a few hiccups along the way with me trying to co-exist with the rest of society. But to read shit like that written up, particularly when it is grossly over-exaggerated, and written from the point of view of someone who is either not fully aware of my situation, or does not fully comprehend it, is practically insulting me.

What makes it even worse is the specific thanks given to that post by a few people I know from college, even more so those I thought I knew fairly well and were good friends with.

Pretty bloody glad I’m probably not going back there now, at least not this year.

The post that started it all is viewable on boards.ie here.

So apparently the timetable for the new Dunboyne rail link has been posted by Irish Rail.
Only the timetable shows that every single Dunboyne train serves Docklands and not Broombridge, Drumcondra or Connolly.

This is fucking retarded. I know a good few people who would be using the new train line who would want to go to Drumcondra as part of their commuting journey. This move by Irish Rail was made without any research or any consultation with people in the area to ensure a satisfactory service for the majority of it’s commuters.

See the timetable here.