Lindybeige

Tales from the Writers' Room - Conscious Robots. Part two: The Gift Horse.

Episode two now. I intend to release the whole series in one go, to please the binge-watchers of the world.

Nice end scene!

i wonder about how much of the discussions between the scenes to leave in. It sometimes go on a bit, but part of what the video is doing is showing the creative process.

I have spent a month editing this, and there is more to go. This is a problem for future videos like it.

Tales from the Writers' Room - Conscious Robots. Part one: The Rise of Darius.

Again, you are seeing this before the masses. At the moment, I'm planning to release the set-up video and perhaps the first two episodes in quick succession. or possibly all at once, to please the binge-watchers.

Now the lighting may make more sense. next time, I may light the set-up stage differently from the game itself.

I am also planning a debrief video in which I may explain why for instance i interrupt people so much, and cut every scene short.

The edit for this ...

Tales from the Writers' Room - Conscious Robots. Part zero: the set-up

You are getting to see this before the rest of the world, which will get it in a day or two. Possibly someone here will spot and report an error that I can correct.

This was a big project for me - many months in the planning, many months in the equipping and recruiting, a one-day shoot with the cast, and then... oh lordy, MANY days of editing. I don't see how I will get the editing process much faster. It didn't help that one camera kept going out of focus, one microphone kept cutti...

New studio tour

Look at the new kit you just paid for!

I am now editing the next series of videos. These are a new departure into a new form of role play gaming. Will anyone watch these videos? Only time will tell. There are about five and half hours of footage on each of the five cameras that covered the event as it occurred (so, in a way twenty-seven hours of footage) which will not have much cut out of it. I've been editing for about seven days and am a third of the way through. I need to w...

The Creator: a film that should have been great

If you are going to spend many millions of other people's money on something, you should strive to make it good. In some ways, this film succeeded. In others, it really didn't.

Hyphens Matter!

The function of punctuation is to make the meaning of a sentence clear. Ideally, the reader should, thanks to the punctuation, be able to glean the correct intended meaning from a sentence in a single reading, and never have to look back over a sentence to make sense of it.

No charge.

Serifs matter

Such irony that I am forced to type this in a san-serif fount (yes, that is the correct English spelling of 'fount' as in type-face).

No charge for this short.

NEVER TRUST YOUR AGENT

Sorry about the foul-up yesterday.  Here is a brand new version of the video, rushed to you at no charge in one day.  

I ramble on about why bright-eyed types who would be your friend and associate may not share your motivations and goals, while saying or believing that they do. 

It's even longer than yesterday's aborted version, so that's... good?

Whoops! I messed up!

Hello everyone.  You may notice that my latest video did not stay up for very long.  It suddenly dawned on me that I may have messed up badly, and that I should take the video down before it got me into trouble.  I shall replace it with a similar video, and you will of course not be charged for my incompetence.  Possibly I am being paranoid, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.  

I hope that you will forgive my blunder.  I hope to get the replacement up with...

NEVER TRUST AN AGENT

A quickish ramble on the topic of why human interests never perfectly align.  Thinking of signing a contract?  Are you sure that their motives match yours? 

UPDATE: I have taken this video down.  I will replace it, and you will not be charged for the replacement.  Very sorry.  Sometimes, we all mess up.

A history of the philosophy of happiness

Well, if you like rambling, THIS is rambling!

I regret pegging a list of names and dates to the camera, because I ended up using almost none of the dates in my speech (they are all there in the captions) and being distracted by my notes.

Bumper pack of shorts

Hello, you marvellous people!

I spent all yesterday editing and publishing eleven short videos.  Most of them are scheduled to appear one per day over the next week or do, but I thought I'd send you all the addresses for the whole lot, so that you binge-watch them when you choose.

Owing to the way that 'scheduling' works on YouTube, you may find that the system locks you out before the scheduled publication date.  I don't think that there is much I can do about that. &nb...

Predictions for 2024

This was intended to come out on New Year's Day, but I did not predict having quite so much trouble getting a tablet to work.  I made an autocue (teleprompter) out of the glass from a clip-frame, and cardboard.  That was the easy bit.  I then spent some frustrating days wrestling with an Android tablet, trying to get it to run the software for scrolling the texts in mirror-image at the correct speed.  My guess is that a committee of designers had kept asking itself "How ca...

Opening a fiendish puzzle-box

A viewer sent me a box to open.  It took a while.  How much fun is it to watch me struggle with it?  I don't know, but you can always skip bits.  Possibly I should make a short version?  What do you think?

Whoops! Jedi silence broken

Oh dear.  It seems that the first two widescreen versions of my 'Gems of Jedi Wisdom' were silent.  Odd how few people complained.  They even got over 90% 'likes'!

I checked on my computer, and on my computer they sounded fine, so I rendered them again and tried a second time.  Again, they came out silent.  I rechecked all my settings, changed nothing, and tried a third time.  Third was the charm.  All I can conclude is that sometimes computers glitch....

Merry Christmas!

A quick (and of course free) seasonal message, with a little bit of teasing news about what's to come next year.

A Brit volunteer in Ukraine: looking back on seven months' service

'BigMac' Joe McDonald came back to review his first seven months' fighting in Ukraine with the Legion.  He has since returned to the front.

Incidentally, can you tell which bit was shot using my new equipment? What equipment do you think it is?

A Canadian volunteer in Ukraine part four: rescuing civilians and hitting a mine

Brandon takes on considerably more dangerous work, and perhaps inevitably pays a price.

A Canadian volunteer in Ukraine: mobilising the nerd army

Brandon shows us that the world's nerds are capable of making quite a difference in Ukraine.

A Canadian volunteer in Ukraine: being a medic with little training

Brandon tells us how he ended up dealing with serious war casualties in a Ukrainian hospital, despite minimal training.

This one got delayed by sponsorship hiccups.  I ended up having to make the advert three times.  Still - got there in the end.

There used to be a 'community' tab on Patreon.  I recall being made aware of it and finding on it messages written long ago that had not known about.  They have made changes to the site, and now I cannot find any of th...

My Next Suit of Armour

A new project.  A new hope.

World War Two's most common tank

Not a great click-bait title, is it?  Should it have been "The tank that gave Hitler nightmares!" instead?  Not really my style. 

Anyway, for those of you who like tanks: tanks!  Specifically LOTS of tanks.  

A Canadian volunteer in Ukraine: part one - why I went, and the shock of arrival

For those of you who like the very long ones with lots of talking: a very long one with lots of talking.

How shiny can armour be?

Ever-so, it turns out.  

Picture credits: Rob Kirby.

I was a bodyguard to the Duke of Gloucester.

No charge for any of these pictures.

Tewkesbury 2023

Just back from Tewkesbury, and I have to thank you all again for this armour.  As you can see, it is ever-so shiny.  

The rain was torrential, but fortunately not during the battle.  Right now, the armour is back home and drying out.  My back, which has been hurting for a while, did not seem to mind the extra strain.  

Tulwar - the sabre of the Indian Mughals

The tulwar!  Look out for a short every day for the next week or so, 6 p.m. British time.

All are free.

Longswords are not what they say

The 'shorts' experiment continues.  

No charge.

The stabbiest of daggers

We'll see, perhaps, if these 'shorts' make a difference.

Again, no charge.

I made a bastard sword

One of several 'shorts' about weapons coming soon:

In theory, these will make The Algorithm notice me again.

No, I cannot change the thumbnail.

No, you have not been charged for this.

Crossing the World's Most Beautiful Lake to Meet a God

Back to Guatemala now, and a trip across the sparkling waters of Lake Atitlan, to a town where there resides a strange god...

Why was there no video last month?  Because I got my days mixed up.  This was supposed to come out on the 31st of June, but there isn't a 31st of June.  I am an idiot.  Still, I saved you some money that way.  July is looking like a bumper month.  I am expecting to have perhaps as many as five videos out, plus some 'shorts'.

...