Early Season 16 Production Update (Patreon)

Hi friends! Welcome to season 16!

Thank you for your patience with my RSI-induced delay last month, I truly appreciate all the kind comments and well-wishes. If you're not interested in my RSI update, please skip to the next section, which has some cool cyberspace/matrix stuff in.

RSI UPDATE

RIGHT. So I feel like I'm on top of what works for me now, after two months of experimentation. I've started doing some thing and stopped doing others. I'll categorise my description by these two categories:

STOP

• 16-hour days

  • No more constant writing, editing, posting, commenting, and then gaming or continuing into the evening. I must step away from my desk!

  • Initially, I only dared type in the mornings (hence my production hiatus!), but now I have better habits, and have extended that to a full workday, but stopping for a full hour at lunch to exercise, and shutting down my pc at 5pm. A normal workday, if you can imagine!

• No more mouse!

  • I used to use the logi MX Master (amazing mouse), and after this RSI attack switched to the logi mx vertical, but found that didn't really help much. I bought a second-hand bluetooth magic trackpad and am using it in my non-dominant hand. This is awkward enough that I try not to use it - GREAT SUCCESS!

START

• Taking breaks.

  • I've re-started my pomodoro technique (25 mins work / 5 mins break) which worked so well for me at university for writing papers, but now I get UP from my desk and do something else for 5 minutes. It's perfect for getting little chores done, not just resting my hands.

• Keyboard-focussed editing.

  • As I've mentioned before, I use the incredible Reaper, a shareware ($60 to buy) audio/video editor that has so much depth of automation I used to feel like I only understand 1% of it.

  • Well, now I understand 2%! I have built a framework of automation on top of the impressive reaper-keys, a vim/which-key emulation plugin for Reaper https://github.com/gwatcha/reaper-keys/ this allows me to edit without touching the mouse!

• I HIRED AN EDITOR

  • During my 4th expensive physiotherapy session, I realised that editors are less expensive than physiotherapy, and I was being detrimentally sentimental by not letting go of some less-creative parts of production. Everyone has to do it, to grow their projects, and I've finally done so!

  • I knew just whom to talk to: My friend Petra (musician, maker, all-round generalist god). I pitched the idea, taught her how to use Reaper, both for audio and video editing, and it was such a good match right from the start!

  • She has since edited every episode of Lost Terminal season 16 and the latest No Boilerplate video.

16.1

I hope it's clear by now, but the WHOLE of season 16 will take place over 10 seconds of in-world time!

I imagine this like bullet-time from "The Matrix (1999)" (kids: it's a sci-fi trans analogy, written by two trans women - go watch it!), in that, there's a sort of perception time-dilation going on, where we are watching events unfold from a very different perspective than we are used to.
Computer-time must be very much like bullet-time. If you can 'think' in many trillions of operations per second.
This is how it feels when programming, anyway. The slowest parts are always waiting for real-world interaction: network connections, hard disk data, input from the users.

It must be annoying to wait for the real world to catch up!

I'm writing a new album, featured in the SIGNAL this season, provisionally called "BGM4BGM": Background music for background music. It's a whole album of texture that, if listened to with headphones, might cover irritating or upsetting sounds in the real world.
Though I'm specifically thinking of autistic folks (such as myself - I made a video discussing my experience of my life here), I believe this kind of 'blanket' music is helpful for anyone who experiences sensory overload. This need not be a mental health thing - a noisy, distracting office or home might also be something you wish to block out.
So far, I have:

• Sensory Distress

• Isolation

• Rules

I'll keep the playlist updated with the tracks https://soundcloud.com/namtao/sets/bgm4bgm

Once published, I plan to expand these shorter tracks to 25 minutes, so if you want you can integrate them in your own Pomodoro schedule!

16.2

Cyberspace descriptions are fun! I've always imagined the AIs in LT experiencing their world in a very alien way to us, with so many more senses.
Instead of not being able to describe that in human terms, the real-world analogies that Seth describes in this season are a much better way to do it, I hope. And fun!

This was the second episode that Petra edited, and the first where I didn't need to do any fixes besides put in sound effects, intro, credits, and music. WONDERFUL!

16.3

Iris married into The Vault Coven!
It was about time we heard of Linda's decision, since 13.11 was the Iris Special!
I think handfastings are a lovely wedding ceremony, the metaphor of friends and relatives coming up to help tie the partners' hands together is especially lovely. I attended one IRL quite recently, and it was touching. I see no reason why more than two hands couldn't be fasted!

EMMA, who I'm delighted to re-introduce, has confirmed what Mirror and IVAN said in the last episode, that ONI is still having an effect on the network.
Though I won't say more yet, I want to highlight this. There's more to tell!

Nia's Shack Map

Everyone who subscribed ahead of 16.1 will be getting the Nia Shack Map, I'll confirm details in the mid-season update - BUT PLEASE CONFIRM YOUR ADDRESS IS CORRECT IN PATREON. See here for how to do that:
https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002832686-How-do-I-update-my-shipping-address

If you DON'T want the map, just unshare your address with me, instructions at the above link too.

Thank you all so much for tuning in, and your support of the show, and me. Talk to you soon! <3