So I had a pretty cool idea this morning. I’ve been thinking about streaming on Twitch.tv, and today I hashed out some details.

Ironmouse has often promoted streaming as a way to have a meaningful purpose in life. Streaming really changed her life and she wants other people to be able to follow their dreams, and streaming is a great avenue to achieve that.

I thought about it over and over, thinking about what sort of thing I could stream that would make sense for me. There are so many mediocre streams out there with streamers putting in little to no effort in being unique. I don’t want to be that kind of streamer.

I don’t want to be a developer streamer who is super boring either, who sits there and codes boring, “been there done that” projects of their own choosing and expects that people will find it interesting.

Fuck, I’m already setting the bar high…

Ok so let me pull that bar down a bit. The idea for my stream is to take requests and make chat bots for my viewers.

The first stream would consist of me making my own chat bot, one which logs incoming requests, and helps me choose the request which I will carry out during the upcoming streams.

I’m setting the bar at zero. I have no expectations that my first, second, third, or tenth stream will even have a viewer. I have every expectation that people will come and go, bored with what they see. I have every expectation that I will be stuck with my own projects for a long time, until someone finally wants something built and they submit a request.

I took notes while I walked this morning. I have a shit ton of ideas about this whole stream idea.

Let’s go over bit by bit.

CJ Crispy Chatbot Coder – Requests Open

Stream synopsis

Every stream would have the same format. I’m thinking that I will limit the streams to 1 hour, so I can be present and energized for the entire stream. In other words, don’t want to have a 3 hour meh stream, I want a 1 hour nice stream.

Pre-roll

A 5 minute pre-roll scene which exists solely to give everybody a chance to receive the e-mail notification and click the stream. (twitch e-mail alerts are often delayed by several minutes)

• “Stream will start shortly”
• Background music
• Corporate sponsor banner
• Countdown timer.

Intro/Welcome

Example welcome–

Hello everyone, I’m CJ Crispy the script kiddie. I’m on a mission to improve my software development skills so I can monetize my work. I am taking requests for chatbots of all types! Do you need something made? Make a !request in the chat.

Let’s take a look at our request list.

I show the spreadsheet which shows all the requests, their requestor, and whether or not they donated.

Anybody can make a request. Priority goes to donators, followed by present individuals.

Let’s choose a request to work on today.

I type !roll in chat which prompts my chatbot to choose a request from the spreadsheet.

“Twitch Among Us chatbot” requested by @SpartanCamoDude1337 on Tue Nov 3, 2020

Chatbot

Alrighty SpartanCamoDude, we are making your among us chatbot today!

Ok so that’s how it would work. I kinda went outside the scope of the intro, but I guess it’s kinda still the intro. I originally separated, “Request selection” from “Welcome/Intro” but I suppose request selection can be a part of that intro!

Code

I would spend the next 50 minutes coding, being vocal about what I’m writing, as if I was doing pair programming. this would be great practice for if I happen to land a job at a web dev place.

Outro

I would make a quick summary of what I worked on, followed by closing out the stream with a post-roll display (similar to the pre-roll.) It’s important to have this, as a lot of people are viewing the stream on a buffered delay, and cutting off the stream immediately would cut off the video still in the buffer.

Scenes

Every good stream needs scenes! Scenes are different views that I can switch to, depending on certain events

Courtesy Scene

A full screen image reminding viewers to not be a dick. This may or may not go good with the project triangle scene.

Reminders

• Don’t be a dick
• CJ Crispy is not an expert. He is a lifelong learner.
• The foundation for making great code is three steps– Make it work, Make it right, Make it fast (in that order)
• Done is better than perfect

Project triangle

The project triangle is a reminder to viewers that they get what they pay for. If they aren’t paying, they should not expect the product to be good!

Pre-roll

BRB

Postroll

Courtesy

Request Guidelines

Hmm

Now that I post those images, I realize that they should not have a white background. White backgrounds blind me! I wouldn’t want my viewers to be blinded as well.

Ok so that’s just about it for today. I have written/drafted images for for 1 hour, and now it’s time to move onto the next thing. I am thinking of making that !request chat bot while recording a test stream!

I know I need two things to make my stream good.

• Active Noise Cancelling Microphone
• Internet upgrade

I might be able to get away with like a 360p stream. It would be a small window for viewers, but it’s within my means. I’m thinking that I want to spend my stimulus check on the Starlink modem, which is going to be like $500.

Also I was thinking that a yeoman generator would be really good for quickly creating chat bot scaffolding. I wonder if there’s a way to create a gitlab repo from the commandline? There’s gotta be a way.

Well it’s all stuff to think about, and iterate on.

On to the next thing!

Gratitude & affirmations

I’m grateful for these super good ideas that I come up with. This whole thing comes from the things I’ve been thinking of lately. I need to make a lot more money if I am to follow my dreams and live my sought-after independent lifestyle. This live stream is a possible way of soliciting donations, and working on my skills of interacting with people and giving them what they want.

This is all in pursuit of Ikigai. Something I love doing, something that I can get paid for, something that the world needs.

I’m grateful for pens and paper which are great ways of tracking my ideas!

I’m grateful for Ironmouse for the inspiration.

85. There is more to this life than this moment; I choose to keep moving forward.
86. I am capable of bringing my dreams to life.
87. I am okay. I am breathing. I am alive.

Excelsior!