30 in 60 Episode 42 - Clusterfuckery

Episode 42 - Clusterfuckery
Date August 24th, 2019

30 in 60 (An Over 30 Clan Podcast)
https://soundcloud.com/over30clan

Full show notes/timeline here: https://pastebin.com/5VDPfWb2
Check for a link in the description of this podcast.

Intro Music and Outro Music
Official Over 30 Clan Theme Song "Fuck Yeah!"
Written by BlackDeath produced by Undergunned Productions
https://soundcloud.com/undergunnedproductions

HOSTS
BlackDeath
Nubs
NukeLaCoog
Tre982

PRE SHOW BULLSHIT

[0:03:25] SHOW START

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CLAN INTRO / SOCIAL MEDIA CONTACTS
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www.over30clan.com
Twitter and Facebook @over30clanusa
www.twitch.tv/over30clanusa
soundcloud.com/over30clan
iTunes search for "over 30 clan"
Our blog GamerViews blog.over30clan.com

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STATE OF THE CLAN
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FNG BREAKDOWN FOR August
118 people registered for the month.


FINANCIAL REPORT
PAYPAL  $658.81
BANK    $382.62
Total   $1041.43

https://www.over30clan.com/topic/1995-donations-site-support-and-operating-costs-updated-10292018

Paid bills in June
7/21/2019	Payment to Viking Snark Arts for logos and web site design	 $ 500.00
7/22/2019	State of Michigan Annual Corporate filing 2019	 		$ 20.00
8/5/2019	Shipping reimbursement to Ashman for shipping giveaway graphics card to winner	 $ 20.83

GIVEAWAY WINNERS - August
Thanks for Ashman for donating an RX480 GPU which we used in a giveaway open to the public.  We promoted the giveaway on Facebook and Twitter and it paid off well.  The clan's channel has nearly 150 followers, over 1100 views, and 10 subscribers after only a month of propoganda extravaganza.

Our 30 day performance toward Path to Partner
Stream for 25 hours 13.86 / 25
Stream on 12 different days 10 / 12
Average of 75 viewers in 13.86 hours streamed 4.78 / 75

Shoutout to our Subscribers
obxaustin
cronyxravage
dimwittedmonkey
over30clanusa
tre982
breakurface
jaybirdgeo82
ponnojonno
oprey
jedistarfighter8
nukelacoog

Winner of the GPU went to Michael Perkins from Arizona
XBOX Minecraft package 1, 2, or 3 (details to follow)
Winners:
@Lochem El
@Anjodemorte - XB1
@bluehound
3 Winners | Ended at•08/12/2019

Random game from prize pool (mostly PC titles) see pinned message for details.
Winners:
@Tre982
@delrey
@PepperNY
@RyO
@doctor mari



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*** STEALS AND DEALS ***
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*** Games with Gold: August
Gears of War 4
Forza Motorsports 6
Torchlight (360)
Castlevania Lords of Shadow (360)


*** PlayStation Plus: August
Wipeout Omega Collection
Sniper Elite 4


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*** UPCOMING CLAN EVENTS / ANNOUNCEMENTS ***
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Forza 7 Racing League is nearly over.  We just wrapped up Race #7 of our 12 race series.  Check us out on twitch.tv/over30clanusa every Friday night.  Qualifying begins @ 10:45pm EST with a tentative race start of 11pm EST

Current Standings
Centurio Butz	57
vendaxian 	47
gkev5681 	41
twocansam79	29
axblackdeathxa	27
vindadu		22
theoutcold	19
lad		12
anitabrake	11
delrey		7
fatattack	2
u4iastrm	1

You can also check out our Overwatch Shenanigans every other Sunday @ 9pm EST.  These are live streamed on twitch.tv/over30clanusa as well with the next event being Sept 1st.


CHANGES WITHIN o30c
New website design is done.  I'm just trying to find the time to write all the things
and fill it with content.  Shout out to Tre for helping wordsmith. Shout out to Viking Snark Arts for all the creative direction and design.

New layout will introduce our new and improved application process.

Again this new update will likely put the forum to pasture and we'll be focusing on
the use of Discord from here on out.

New site will also automatically be fed content from our blog and our event calendar.
Our clan Twitch channel / stream will also be embeded.

The site should be a quick and easy table of contents for all things Over 30 Clan.

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*** GAMING / TECH NEWS ***
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If You Said Anything Weird In Front Of Your Xbox One, Microsoft Probably Heard It

Microsoft contractors have listened to audio recordings of Xbox users speaking in their homes, a report by Motherboard has revealed. Audio from Xbox One users was sometimes triggered and recorded by mistake when contractors were working to improve the console's voice command functions.

The practise began at the beginning of the Xbox One's life cycle but was only meant to capture audio following voice commands like "Xbox" or "Hey Cortana." It's the latest example of contractors working on behalf of Microsoft to listen to audio captured by several of the company's products. An earlier Motherboard report revealed that human contractors were listening to some Skype calls and audio recorded by Microsoft's virtual assistant, Cortana.

"Xbox commands came up first as a bit of an outlier and then became about half of what we did before becoming most of what we did," one former contractor told Motherboard. "Most of the Xbox related stuff I can recall doing was obviously unintentional activations with people telling Cortana 'No' as they were obviously in the middle of a game and doing normal game chat," a current contractor said. Each contractor signed an NDA so Motherboard has kept them anonymous to protect their identities.

The Xbox One launched in 2013 with the capability to be controlled via voice commands using Kinect. At the time, many were concerned with the idea of Kinect listening to Xbox users, but Microsoft released a statement addressing privacy concerns saying that "Kinect for Xbox 360 was designed and built with strong privacy protections in place and the new Kinect will continue this commitment."

"The Xbox stuff was actually a bit of a welcome respite, honestly," the former contractor added. "It was frequently the same games. Same DLCs. Same types of commands, 'Xbox give me all the games for free' or 'Xbox download [newest Minecraft skins pack]' or whatever. Occasionally I heard 'Xbox, tell Solas to heal,' or something similar, which would be a command for Dragon Age: Inquisition."

The former contractor said that most of the voices they heard were of children, and that listening continued as the Xbox One moved from using Kinect for voice commands over to Cortana in 2016. A current contractor provided Motherboard with a document, describing how workers should work with different types of Cortana audio, including Xbox voice commands.

"A domain for controlling gaming features, such as finding friends lists, creating a 'party,' inviting players to a party. Most Xbox controlling will belong to this domain," the document reads. A "domain" is a topic that transcribed Cortana audio should be sorted into to improve the system.

Microsoft has now owned up to these issues, and the service did gradually improve. "As time went on, we got less apparently accidental stuff as the feature improved," the former contractor said. Microsoft removed Cortana from Xbox One back in July, but the virtual assistant can still be used to control the console via the Cortana Android and iOS apps.

A Microsoft spokesperson responded to Motherboard's report, saying that the company recently stopped listening to audio to improve its products. "We stopped reviewing any voice content taken through Xbox for product improvement purposes a number of months ago, as we no longer felt it was necessary, and we have no plans to re-start those reviews," the spokesperson said. "We occasionally review a low volume of voice recordings sent from one Xbox user to another when there are reports that a recording violated our terms of service and we need to investigate. This is done to keep the Xbox community safe and is clearly stated in our Xbox terms of service."

"We've recently updated our privacy statement to add greater clarity that people sometimes review this data as part of the product improvement process," the company added. "We always get customer permission before collecting voice data, we take steps to de-identify voice snippets being reviewed to protect people's privacy, and we require that handling of this data be held to the highest privacy standards in the law. At the same time, we're actively working on additional steps we can take to give customers more transparency and more control over how their data is used to improve products."

Microsoft offers a dedicated page for users to delete any audio captured by the company's products.

https://account.microsoft.com/account/privacy


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*** TALKING POINTS ***
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Apex shits the bed with new Iron Crown event where all new items are pay walled.

The controversy began with Apex Legends’ Iron Crown event, which introduced skins that necessitated that players grind for (or buy) expensive loot boxes. There was backlash, and Respawn vowed to reverse course. The developers said it was a learning experience for them, but some conspiracy theorists alleged that the studio had planned it all along, prompting a variety of awful comments toward the battle royale creators. In response, a few Respawn employees snapped on Reddit, calling one player a “dick” and referring to others as “ass-hats,” “toxic,” and “freeloaders.”

The comments, while arguably nasty, were directed at segments of the fan base who expressed their displeasure with the situation using harsh terms. In context, the developers were talking about how difficult it’s been to monetize a free-to-play game, admitting a lack of experience in the realm.

Taken out of context, the comments sparked a furious response on social media by onlookers who believe that game developers shouldn’t speak to their fans that way. Zampella said that Respawn developers received some unfair attacks from players, but nonetheless apologized to those offended by the responses from the team.

“Having an open, healthy relationship with our community is incredibly important to all of us at Respawn,” Zampella wrote.

Respawn CEO apologizes for devs who insulted Apex Legends fans

It has not been a good week for Apex Legends. First, the battle royale game angered fans with overpriced cosmetics. The game changed course, and the developers got on Reddit to explain the situation — only for the conversation to devolve into insults and name-calling. On Monday, Respawn CEO Vince Zampella apologized to fans on Twitter.

“Things got to a pretty bad place,” Zampella said. He noted that members of the Respawn team got some “toxic and nasty comments” where death threats were lobbied and family members were brought into the mix, and said that he supports his employees in speaking out against those instances. However, the way these employees expressed their concern “crossed a line,” according to Zampella.

“We shouldn’t contribute to [toxic and nasty comments],” Zampella continued. “We need to lead by example.”


Destiny 2 bullshit

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*** BLACKMAIL BOX ***
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Didn't happen due to technical issues.


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ROUND TABLE / SHIT POSTING
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n/a

[1:01:56] PRE SHOW / POST SHOW BULLSHIT