Yes, it’s like Pokemon. No, that isn’t a bad thing…

The number one reaction I’m seeing within my community to TemTem is that it looks like a Pokemon ripoff. It’s not fair. I don’t think the word “ripoff” makes any sense here. In my opinion TemTem is a spiritual successor, an improved version of the Pokemon formula.

The Pokemon franchise is full of good games. These games, however, tend to have a lot of common problems.

HMs. One-use TMs. Not being able to actually “catch ’em all” after decades have gone by and there’s nobody to trade with. Slow and…

Today is the day I switch to a standing desk.

The reason why I’m making this change is because I’m really tired of sitting down all day. I’m still in pandemic-stay-at-home mode for the most part and spending the majority of my life at my desk, in my room, sitting, has led to all kinds of weirdness.

My back hurts. My knees hurt. I get tired too easily and just feel lazy a lot in the afternoon and evening.

I’ve been trying to improve these things with ideas like eating less carbs or spending less time on the computer, but…

Here’s an assortment of the most entertaining and interesting things I’ve found on the internet this week.

Music of the Week

Alpha Male Tea Party — Ballerina

Math rock from 2017, much more on the polyrhythm and groove side than on the frantic spazz side. This is one of those bands that has popped in my recommendation feeds over the years. I should’ve clicked sooner. The whole album is thick, well-produced polyrhythmic grooves, with absolutely no shredding in-between. Just heavy riffs and occasional quiet moments or dance beats to break up the prog.

Video of the Week

Talking Tech and Holograms w/ Mark Zuckerberg

I am sometimes skeptical…

Becoming a Twitch affiliate is easy, but then what?

For me it only took about three months to reach the affiliate level as a Twitch streamer starting from scratch. However I noticed, like many people, that after reaching 3 concurrent viewers it got a lot more challenging to grow the stream.

This blog post looks at why it’s so common to hit a viewership plateau after reaching affiliate status on Twitch.

Why Affiliate is Easy

Affiliate is easy because of the way Twitch is set up.

Most games are in the long tail of Twitch viewership. There will be anywhere from 0–5 people streaming…

Almost anything that a person does these days involves typing.

For example, I learned to become a music producer about five years ago. Every single step of the music production process in done on a keyboard. Composing, tracking, mixing, mastering, all of it is controlled via keyboard and mouse.

I used to play poker in real life. All you needed was a chip and a chair, as they say. Now I’m quarantined in my house and enjoying poker via the internet, where I have to type my way through each hand.

Social media? Video games? School? …

“I’ve had to unfollow people for that before. I follow them for Mega Man, but then they switch to other games and I lose interest.” — xXsephiroth69Xx

A member of my chat, whom I’ll call “xXsephiroth69Xx,” is telling me about his experience as a Twitch viewer. We’re talking about the challenge of variety streaming, how many viewers will join for one game and then unfollow as soon as you move on to a new one.

xXsephiroth69Xx followed me when I was playing through the Mega Man X series, a difficult set of platformers starting with one of the best games…

TikTok is a valuable source of attention for anybody who is marketing a Twitch channel.

If you are reading this, it means you are on the fence. You might start posting on TikTok, but you need help understanding how to get started.

There is a lack of content on the TikTok platform which means that random posts can get thousands of views even if the account has no followers yet. If you post something halfway decent every day on TikTok, you will gain followers. This is supply and demand in action, perhaps the only economic concept I actually understand.

It’s…

It isn’t easy to show up and do creative work on a regular basis.

Creativity is about novelty, seeking something new that hasn’t been done before. There are no guarantees. No matter how pure your intentions, sometimes the creative process leads you nowhere.

When you find yourself in a creative rut, you need to shift your perspective. Seek out new ideas and try to see things from a new angle. If you add new ingredients to your mental soup, new feelings of creativity will emerge.

Sometimes it’s hard to find that first spark of creativity on your own. …