Decay-Proof Record Scroll

10 December 2012

Twitpic Is An Apt Name

My phone has been having fits lately, mostly over the number of apps that I have installed to the memory card as opposed to the internal memory. Here's the problem, the internal memory of my phone doubles as the RAM. Most smartphones, going all the way back to the SDA I had, which was an old-school Windows Mobile phone, had a task manager where you could turn off anything that was running if it didn't already have an exit button programmed into it.
Anyway, the problem lately has been that the phone will claim it can't find the memory card, meaning even my photos can't be seen. As you might imagine, this really irked me in the worst way. Eventually, it would just sort of "fix itself" if I gave it time, at worst just restarting the phone. To be fair, I am a bit rough with my phone, but in my defense, its entire design scheme is built around never turning it off. The HTC Rhyme has a number of quirky little features and accessories that really endeared me to it when I started up my new cell service. One of these items of interest is a charging dock that turns the phone into a kind of desk clock. In fact, it's my primary alarm clock that I wake up to for workdays. The issue with this is that I have to set aside time in the day to allow the phone to die, to run completely out of juice and essentially "let it rest" for a while.
The trouble lately is that it doesn't seem to be enough, and it continues to give me grief over not being able to see the memory card as well as not being able to run certain applications if they're installed to the memory card. I would be browsing sites or checking messages when suddenly I'd get an error message that some app I'm not even really using has "encountered an error" presenting me with the choices of "report" or "force close." It got to the point where I stopped getting eBay notifications because it couldn't really run the app anymore.
As a result, I tried to do a little bit of housekeeping today, going through all my apps, clearing caches and moving them onto the memory card or erasing them altogether if I could, while leaving some apps on the internal memory (apart from the ones that are "locked" and can't be deleted for various reasons), namely Evernote, as it's sort of been my best (non-human) friend on my current writing project. One casualty of this venture has been Twitpic, which is only in a non-working state because it doesn't seem to recognize my account information. I mean, I know I'm entering the right password, but it's not recognizing it. Granted, I'm probably putting in the wrong password regardless of my confidence to the contrary, but I've really just given up on it. Twitpic used to be a place where I posted sketches and work-in-progress photos of art projects I would later post to DeviantART. It was kind of a "behind-the-scenes/coming attractions" sort of exercise, showing a glimpse into my admittedly unremarkable process. I haven't used it much of late as I've been writing, but even when I have made a few drawings or notes, I don't really miss posting the images.
Who knows, maybe I'll join the rest of civilization and just start using Instagram?

Doubtful, but I do have a short essay in mind about Instagram, and the often ludicrous level of popularity surrounding it. In a way, it's kind of like how I felt about Twitter: in theory, it's genius, a kind of "bad by design" camera in line with Lomography or other classic experimental photo techniques. In reality, it's earned a rather unfavorable nickname, something like "Hipster's Polaroid." There's a tweet I found once that's a reply to Nikon regarding their Android camera that came out some months back. If I can find it, I'll write the essay then.

In the meantime, short summation of events:
Phone is wonky.
Writing project is going very well, for better or for worse.
Twitpic has packed up.
Evernote is my best friend.
I'm considering getting an eBook reader, but I'm debating about a color scheme, and the only place I can post a poll about it is on DeviantART, which would mean bumping down a poll that's relevant to my current project.
Current random object of fascination: Book straps.

25 November 2012

SEX SELLS (but would anyone buy?)

Here's a little context to set the tone:

Making money off anything to do with the internet is a little like asking for change from the driver's seat of a Ferrari; no one thinks you deserve it, and resent you for asking, never mind that it's a small amount, you only ask once with no issue made of it, and you offer rides to anyone who contributes. It's mind-boggling how many people can be turned away from something if they suspect that it's making money for someone. A YouTuber I follow by the name of KipKay recently had a product placement in one of his videos, some weird energy drink/snack that he was sent as a gift (possibly paid for, I don't know). Despite only being a few seconds out of the total video length, the dis/like bar was almost totally red and a number of comments below cried things like "Sell out!" or "Shill!" or often far worse.
More recently, a businessman by the name of Greg Pabich started a Kickstarter fund to release a fixed version of a notoriously-buggy NES game called Cheetahmen II. The main point of criticism was that the project required upfront payments, citing similar services that produce NES cartridges on consignment (that is, no money upfront, with production being on-demand instead of using pre-orders). This would seem a fair point of discussion, except that the people who were bringing this up were calling Pabich's Kickstarter a scam because of it.
How is using a different business model than someone else a scam? Is Target scamming people because they use different distributors and marketing techniques than Wal-Mart? Obviously that's not to say there are no such things as scams or false advertisements, but merely profiting from something does not a scam-artist make.

I'm starting to feel like I may be preemptively biting the hand that may or may not feed me by defending a business model I haven't even fully-implemented yet. I've started writing an erotica story, one that's shaping up to be fairly lengthy, not quite novella territory, but sizable nonetheless. It's comprised of four chapters and a short introduction/disclaimer. The intro and first chapter are essentially finished, but I don't want to post it anywhere until I have the remainder completed. Part of this is because that's just how I've always written, somehow it just feels like bad luck or counting chickens before they hatch. I'd rather not start shooting a trailer before I have a script.
The main reason, though, is that I'm planning on selling the story, with the first chapter being available for free and the entire story for a price.
I'm either going to have it available on DeviantART using their "points for download" system, though I'm not entirely sure they'll allow the story to be posted there, given their upload guidelines, or through Google Play Books (Android and Chrome platforms). The price, whichever system I go with, will be about 1.00USD (though I'm looking at a few other services to see how their profit-sharing compares). It is turning out to be fairly lengthy, but it's hardly in novella territory yet, but it's shaping up to be at least as long as Ladyhorse which I wrote a few years ago. Following its release, I considered re-inserting a paragraph I'd deleted at the last minute and offering that version up for sale as a sort of "Premium Edition." Obviously, that's going a little overboard for just a paragraph, which is why I also considered commissioning some illustrations for it. In the end, I didn't bother with it. For this, I've considered making some myself, though I'll admit they won't be anything special (in fact, they'll probably be sketches of locations or items in the story, as I've kept character descriptions to a minimum). I don't know if that's worth a dollar, illustrated or not, but compared to some of what I've seen on Google Play for around that price, it's probably more robust. Plus, I'm still working under the notion I set forth in the comic that, in the way of 90% of erotic literature, I could do better. So, this is me putting my money where my mouth is, and possibly shooting myself in the foot for blabbing about this potentially earlier than I really should have.

Here goes nothing.

... better get back to it.