Ed

Most days I'm still making a voice recording, they haven't been good enough to publish lately. That's ok, at the moment keeping it going as a habit is more important. I'm quite busy but I still find that I'm procrastinating more than I should. So to try to get myself a bit more organised I'm going to plan out my week with a bit more structure: They're blank at the moment but I'll be filling them all in later.

I recorded 30 podcasts, I haven't uploaded them all because for once I used up almost all my allocated data on Libsyn. I missed 3 days so it was finished in 33 days rather than 30 but overall I'm happy with the project. Though I am seriously considering where I'm going to go with my internet presence. I would like to be more focused on a single topic, at the moment the general theme of my podcasts has been, "stuff I've learned throughout my life". Which is a little too broad. What I'm thinking of doing is concentrating on a more narrow focus of electronics theory, not necessarily with podcasting, but actually making some YouTube videos and building up my other website.

A lot of martial arts clubs will allow you to one or two sessions for free. Sometimes the trial period is for a full week. Go and try a few out, see if you like it. They're unlikely to throw you in the deep end and expect you to spar on the first day. I've only ever been to one Krav Maga class so I can't be sure, but in my experience the vast majority of people involved in martial arts are nice people.

Thanks. Glad you liked it. For most people it shouldn't be a huge concern. Unless you're writing stuff that's as inflammatory as Matt Forney's material, it's unlikely people are going to put a lot of effort into finding out who you are. Obscurity protects people more than anonymity does. Just need to be mindful about what you put online.

I'm not sure that I would call it a conversation but there are a few thoughts that will often pop up: "I don't have many people listening, so it doesn't matter if I don't record" - rationalizing "I'll just do it later" - denial "I'm not exactly politically correct, there is some risk in publishing a podcast" - rationalizing, it's true but extremely low probability. "If I get just a tiny bit better at public speaking it will be worth it" "Just start up Audacity and start recording, start talking, the beginning can be edited out" - Like a lot of things in life, once you start actually doing something the resistance just goes away. There's also weighing up the fact that this podcast does not make me any money and quite likely never will, at least not directly. However the skills that I'm improving by doing the podcast will enable me to earn more money. I finished recording day 32 of the 30 days of podcasting challenge. I missed 3 days so tomorrow's one will be the last in this project. After that I'm going to go back to doing a weekly one. Instead of trying to do it all in one day I'm going to split the tasks up over a period of a week. On Monday I'll finishing editing them and decide which ones will be posted this month, my Libsyn 50Mb upload quota doesn't have much left. Here's the one I recorded today: http://traffic.libsyn.com/edtrigger/being_anonymous_on_the_internet.mp3 I'm reasonably happy with it, some of my points could have been a bit clearer. That will become less of a problem now that I'm going back to a weekly podcast.

You probably should have kept drawing, but unless you find a way to go back in time there's no use in beating yourself up about it. You can't change that, but you should learn from it. In 5 years, when you're 32 you don't want to be looking back wishing you'd kept practicing. That's assuming it takes that long to get to a professional level. I know very little about the art industry, but I would imagine that it would take a lot less time to get to a standard you could get paid for it. At 27 you're still young enough to make big changes to your life, it will require action and it won't always be easy. In the meantime start telling yourself about your good qualities.

I'm still being a little slack when it comes to editing and uploading my podcasts. But I have been recording them every day. (Except for 3 days). Today I really didn't feel like recording one. So I recorded one. http://traffic.libsyn.com/edtrigger/Dont_feel_like_doing_a_podcast.mp3

Noooooooo

I've been making recordings consistently, but I've been slack with editing and uploading them. Btw, here's the link for I punched an 8 year old in the face

I'm fast running out of storage space on Libsyn, I get 50Mb per month. So some of the podcasts might have to wait before they're posted. Day 21 podcast recorded. Title: I punched an 8 year old in the face. It's slightly clickbaity, but I think it falls within acceptable levels. I was 8 at the time, it's not like I did this as an adult.

I've read some of Ramit's techniques, however I didn't have a lot of power in this situation. Ramit's ideas are good, but they aren't foolproof. I made the mistake of agreeing to a contract before I had the phone, they had assured me that particular phone was in stock. So they had my money and nothing I said or did made any difference. The other idea with posting gifs was that I didn't want to do anything that would cost me a lot of effort. There's not much point in saving $100 when it costs me $200 worth of effort. Fortunately my plan appeared to work. Podcasts: I've recorded day 17, still haven't published it. I missed day 18 and 19. Day 20 has been recorded.

It's how I've payed my bills for the last 10+ years There are plenty of free resources to learn electronics now, but it will be much more interesting if you physically build the circuits. This will cost some money for the breadboard and a DC power supply. Components such as resistors, capacitors, LEDs cost very little. Other options are to buy a 200 in 1 electronics kit like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpayYlJdbJk, that's the exact model I had when I was a child. Or to buy individual kits for various projects. In Australia we have a store called Jaycar that sells these things. In USA, I believe Radioshack is similar. I'm not sure what the European equivalent is. In regards to building a website, you can start with a free wordpress blog. If you later decide that you want your own domain name and hosting you can transfer your content over. It's a bit tedious to do that, though it's not that bad either. In the beginning, you'll likely have no one reading it. Once you start building an audience there will be some people who judge you. But you're going to get this in real life if you decide to do anything out of the ordinary. Being able to deal with judgement is a good skill to have online and offline. Another thing you could do is to write under a pseudonym, although no-one is truly anonymous on the internet, people are not going to put effort into finding out who you really are until you've made it big.

If you haven't already, get yourself a breadboard, power supply and some various electronic components. Some things will make a lot more sense when you play around with it. Another good resource is the free version of Micro-Cap 11, it's an electronic circuit simulator. You can get it from http://www.spectrum-soft.com/download.shtm

The guitar intro is great

My phone company sent me an email today offering $4 off my bill every month, over the 24 month contract, it adds up to $96. So it appears that shitposting on Twitter got their attention. I know we're not talking about large sums of money, but I believe companies should honor the promises they make. So fighting them on Twitter was partly due to principle and the other part was to satisfy my curiosity. Can one person change the actions of a large impersonal company? Would I get banned from Twitter? I have no idea if any of my actions influenced the outcome, but from one day to the next, they went from ignoring me to responding and offering me a better deal. Maybe it was the cookie monster gif...

Day 17 podcast has been recorded, I'll edit it and post it later today or possibly tomorrow. I've been posting gifs on Twitter in response to my phone company not sending the phone when they originally promised. Yeah, it's kind of juvenile and there is some risk to myself, but I want to see if I can have an effect on the situation. The goal is also making it amusing for anyone observing. I don't think my phone company likes me all that much at the moment. Here's a portion of an email I was sent: I have doubts about how cool it actually is, but yesterday they were ignoring my email. Today they responded, and the phone went from being sent on the 21st to "Your order is being prepared for delivery" Is it possible that this would have happened anyway without my input? Maybe. Or did posting Simpsons gifs speed up the process? I told them I would refrain from posting any more Simpsons gifs, fortunately there are millions of other non-Simpsons gifs It's not over yet. Ps. I won't post any more Simpsons gifs, but I do have a Futurama one coming up if this goes on long enough.

It shouldn't be that controversial. But we live in a time when people talk about micro-aggressions and they're being serious. So if I say that people under 40 who are in relationships, have serious problems if they have sex less than once a month, I can think of a few groups who would not like hearing that. Hint: they're not having a lot of sex

Day 16 Podcast done. http://edtrigger.com/dont-move-girlfriend-considering-two-things-podcast/ Some of my opinions in this one might anger some people. Or maybe not, it's really hard to tell what is going to offend people these days.

One more day of podcasting done. Weirdly, I've found it so much easier to do it every day rather than weekly. Today I talked about my ongoing troubles with my phone company, and why I'm grateful that's one of my biggest problems at the moment. I've listed all my podcasts at edtrigger.com/30-day-podcasting-challenge-day-01/ They're all available from Libsyn, I haven't put any of the recent ones on Youtube. In the future I'm considering adding the podcast track to video footage of me riding my bike. Like this, but better footage. Surely that would be more entertaining than watching someone play video games while they rant. Had a skype coaching call with Cam this morning and one of his suggestions was to add an intro to the podcast. The technical side of doing that is incredibly easy, choosing the music/intro that sounds good and suits me will be more of a challenge.

Podcast production is going well, yesterday I asked the question: "Am I an Asshole?" I'm sure the answer would be a resounding yes for some people, while others would think I'm reasonable. And today I talked a bit more about the hassles I'm having with my phone company (right-click to download)

I take the opposite view. I think that clean, drinkable water is something that should be available to everyone. But there are already other charities that do this sort of work and I see it as somewhat disconnected to Gamequitters. A new camera, on the other hand, is directly linked to the operation and effectiveness of Gamequitters. Getting better video footage is going to help Cam's Youtube channel become more popular, which in turn will get more people watching. For the amount of work Cam does on this forum, on Reddit, on the Discord chat, on Youtube, he deserves to be making much more money than he currently is. Which is why, even though I don't support the well, I chose to donate $50. (There's also the offer of the coaching session, I'm not totally altruistic) As for the leadership side of things, this is a very clear case that you can't make everyone happy. Regardless of what you do, there's always going to be people who disagree. All you can do is make a decision on what you believe is the best way forward and go with it.

Just released day 12 of the 30 days of podcasts. This one might be a little more controversial than my other episodes. I don't mind if people disagree with me but I worry that my points and reasoning might not be clear enough. Regardless of whether people agree, I believe the quality of the podcast is getting better. It's still a long way from where I want it to be but it's a few tiny steps closer.

Keep getting a little better each day and before you know it you'll look around and wonder how you became a huge success...

I smashed my phone. The screen is cracked and only about half an inch at the top shows anything. As I was heading out, I picked up my phone and spun it in the air. The plan was to catch it, unfortunately I missed and sent it hurtling towards the ground at an even greater speed. That wouldn't have been too bad, it has a protective case. But the protective case can't do much when it's hurled into the one piece of metal in the room. I tell this story to my girlfriend. "Why are you grinning about it?" "Because it's funny" She wonders why I'm not upset about it. I'd much rather my phone wasn't broken, but is getting upset about it going to improve my life in any way? Obviously, if I could go back in time and not break my phone I would do that. Unfortunately my time machine app was on that phone.... In other news, my podcast streak was broken, I didn't get an episode out for day 8. Rather than give up I made sure that I got back into it on day 9. I also recorded the day 10 podcast. It's not quite at the quality I want, but the day 10 recording is a lot closer than all the other ones.

I don't feel attacked, the reason I was going to refrain from commenting is because you've clearly indicated you don't want to hear what I have to say. If my comments are only going to upset you, rather than provide some clarity, then it's futile and I'd rather not make any. I have no idea if your fiance is cheating on you. But I can say with absolute certainty that the main objective of your fiance's former sex-buddy is to continue that sexual relationship. I think you know this, even if you're reluctant to admit it. His goals are directly in opposition to your goals. In my experience, relationships have enough challenges without bringing in people who want to undermine it. I'm not saying your fiance is cheating or even that she will, but this is an additional pressure on your relationship that wasn't there before. Nothing good will come from having this guy around. I'm not going to say that men and women can't be platonic friends. But your fiance is going on dates with a man who she had a wild, sexual, illicit affair with. A man that was ok with cheating on his fiance. If that isn't raising tons of red flags, then nothing I say can help you. And I may as well not comment if the only thing I achieve is to upset you. Of course, if you believe that I'm wrong, no need to be upset, just write me off as some asshole on the internet who has no idea what he's talking about. Good luck.