Ian M Rountree

Project Manager, Copywriter, Digital Marketer

Personal Blog Entries

Non-business related entries; personal amusements, unsorted posts, and miscellany.

Aggregation

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As I wrote the other day on my LiveJournal, I’ve decided to halt all crossposting from this blog. I’ve been sending my posts to LJ and Facebook, and notifying Twitter about posts for sometime, and it hasn’t done anything for me other than increase my traffic load, which is counterproductive. I’ll still be crossing with Twitter, as I actually use that tool somewhat, and possibly exposting to Facebook, since it’s just an RSS aggregator plugin, but LiveJournal and a few of the other communities I’ve been notifying through WordPress plugins will be disappearing at the end of April.

I’m taking the time to gather all of my archives from LJ, and deciding whether to drop them into a static archive, or impliment WP installs for Maredran and Aragos separately. I’m using OpenID on my WP installs now, so those involved in either the Aragos or Maredran project don’t need to add yet another UID to their list of growing accounts, this should help people keep up with their own contributions as well. It’ll be a labour, but one I’ll have time for since Jaz and Liam are going to Arizona in April and I’m staying here – I can neither get the time off work, nor afford to send myself down with them.

So, for the next couple of weeks, I’ll try to keep updating on the aggregation process. In the meantime, anyone who has in the past been involved in either the Maredran project, or the Aragos (and subsequently, any historic Alamak and WoC roleplay it references) feel free to let me know wether you want to be removed from the archive completely. The stuff’s yours, after all.

Hack Economics

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I’m not a real economist. I’ve never been to school for anything other than basic training, and certainly not economics or anything related. I’m a hack economist, like so many others out there. I make up numbers as I go along, and mash theories together in combinations I’m sure strike the professionals worse than marmalade and liverwurst – but that’s beside the point. The trouble with hack economics is the trouble with the financial state of the world.

If I decide to curb my spending because of something I hear on the news, about the economy being down, what does that gain me? My wage stays the same, assuming I don’t lose my job – granted, I work on commission partially, so others not spending harms me in percentage values – and the actual cost of living doesn’t go up unless my situation changes. But if I’m not contributing to the buffer, I’m detracting from it with my scrounging.

Similarly, if I spend more because there are good theoretical deals on things – because people are dipping prices to bust the recession – I’m actually lessening my ability to pay my bills, and thus harming my position in the economy and, by proxy, the economy itself.

And if I do nothing, change no habits and continue the mediocre road I’m not preventing bad situations, nor encouraging good ones. The middle of the road means that, while I maintain equilibrium, save a little, buy a little… I likely don’t do a lot of discretionary buying, other than planned stuff, which means a very boring time. If I’m not attempting to change the course of the world, I cannot possibly help, and make no attempt to stop those who hinder.

So where do we win? What adjustments can be made? Well, for one thing, we can stop paying attention to the news. We can look at our own expenses and incomes evenly, with verve and conservation in mind. We can not go crazy with spending, and refuse to wall ourselves in with worry. This is opinion, I warn you, but if everyone had an attitude of constant, cautious progress, the world would be a lot less exciting… But we’d also have a lot less to worry about. And when it comes to sacrificing excitement in the name of reducing stress… Well, I’m all over that.

One Third of NaNo

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So we’re pretty much a third of the way through National Novel Writing Month, and I’m at about a third of where I need to be. It’s annoying, but it happens. Writers have this issue – it amounts to the same thing retail workers call “Stockroom Syndrome” where you enter the stock room and completely forget what you were going there for. Sort of the same thing every time I fire up Office and get ready – I open OneNote for all my world notes, Excel for all my plotlining, and Word for my document itself and – BLAM – there goes my next scene. It doesn’t matter how well planned it is, I just completely fail at writing it.

However, I’m on day one of three consecutive days off, so somewhere in that time I hope to get up to the 15k words I’m aiming for by this point, even if I should be closer to 20k or 25k by the end of the week. I’m only just over 6k now. If there are any beta readers still hiding out there, please do let me know by email. You’ve got mine, I assume? Good.

On a completely bump-related note, go on and stop by http://www.khrystallee.com/ and check out her stuff. I had the privilage of talking to Khrystallee about her stuff today, and Jaz has a necklace of hers. It’s some of the best work out there, and incredibly well priced.

Following is a bit of a personal rant, feel free to avoid it.

[Read more…]

2008 Nano!

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I’ve entered the 2008 National Novel Writing Month contest! Yay me! Also, Lei is helping me with the writing, as my entry is The Dowager Shadow, which is the extension of the Maredran RP game. It starts on November 1st, so there’s still time to prepare. Whee!