Thursday, November 28, 2019

NaNoWriMo Winner!


I won NaNoWriMo again this year, on Thanksgiving, two days early with 50,181 words!

Just thought I'd let you know, and while I'm posting anyway:

Happy Thanksgiving!!!  :)

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Thursday, November 14, 2019

Youtube 'Made For Kids'

November 14, 2019 edition.

YOU PROBABLY DO NOT WANT TO MAKE YOUR VIDEOS ‘MADE FOR KIDS’!!!

I got an email from youtube today saying they have to comply with a new law; COPPA Child’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

They are dividing all of their content between videos that are ‘made for kids’ and videos that are not.  They did not define what makes a video ‘made for kids’ but they will be happy to suspend your account if it doesn’t comply.  It doesn’t have anything to do with whether its porn or not.

You can either set it yourself, or their automated machines will do it for you, (viz tumblr), I don’t think you can change it once you set it (or if you do you might get your account suspended).

If you set your video as made for kids, they aren’t supposed to track people for personalized advertising.

On the other hand, if you do set it as ‘made for kids’ some features will no longer be available:
  • Personal advertising
  • Comments
  • Channel branding watermark
  • Donate button
  • Cards or end screens
  • Live chat or live chat donations
  • Notification bell
  • Playback in the Miniplayer
  • Super Chat or Super Stickers
  • Save to playlist
  • Stories
  • The Community tab in the Channel page
  • Notification bell
  • Channel Memberships
This list was not in their email and I only found it by following one of their links.

THEY APPARENTLY DIDN’T FIND IT IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO MENTION THAT COMMENTS ARE DISABLED IF YOU MAKE IT ‘MADE FOR KIDS’?

I don’t know what’s going to happen to youtube, when all this happens.  I think eventually the only movies that show up are going to be ones that are obscene or inappropriate.  If you have a regular channel and want to keep going with it you probably want to mark all your content as ‘not made for kids’.  For most of us it probably means an exodus to other video streaming services.

Sunday, November 3, 2019

November Update

Inktober:

Last month was Inktober and I only got four out of thirty-one drawings done, which you can find in my last article:

Inktober 2019!

Which isn't great but at least they're all reasonable quality, and I think I'll do a bunch of sketching and doodling and do a lot better next year.


NaNoWriMo:

This month I'm writing a story about a Gravedigger, and how he lives in the graveyard and every time undead rise up out of their graves he has to kill them with his magic shovel and put them to rest again.  He gradually amasses a band of street urchins, living statues and ghosts, who then set out to save the city from the street gangs and Imperials vying for power in the slums and the reptilian creatures that infest the sewers in a post apocalyptic empire.

The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words so I won't have time for much else this month, but I'll tell you all about it in December.


December:

Well December of course is Christmas, and you might think that would be enough of a challenge for one month.  In addition, I will also have the rough draft to a 50,000 word novel, to contend with.  However, I'm also going to spend some time working on a children's book.  My sister and I came up with a really grand idea for one a couple of months ago and I think it will be great hilarious.  It features a brontosaurus and his mishaps involving a whole lot of poodles.  I think it will be a lot of fun to work on, and of course to read and I expect to get it done in about a year, which is way less time than any of my other projects are projected to take at this point.

Saturday, November 2, 2019

Inktober 2019!

Credits.

The top photo is based on this wonderful stock photo: fav.me/dbevbzl By: jennomat on DeviantArt
The second one is a wonderful closeup of moss: fav.me/dd1u31o By: Nexu4 on DeviantArt
The third one is out of my head, (I know I must have been).
And the bottom one is based on this excellent stock photo: fav.me/d68qn4a By: faestock also on DeviantArt

So I got four pictures done, that's one less than last year, but a lot less than next year.