First, two announcements:
First, as an FYI, I’m going to deliberately scale back to posting three times a week for the next couple of months… instead of accidentally only posting three times a week. Whoops. No guarantees as to which days of the week they are, though. I’m going to try for MWF, but… If you do the RSS thing, then you’ll not have to worry about that. Also, they get published to my Facebook fan page as well.
Secondly, I’ve got a tumblr… but it’s an experimental work of (quasi) interactive fiction. I don’t know if my GM will go for it or not, but it’ll definitely help with the “keep writing” bit and also help me develop this character openly a bit more. With any luck, it’ll be more interesting than watching other people play a pen-and-paper role playing game.
And a quick note on corporate goals. Recently, I was given this bit of wisdom:
If your values and goals do not equal those of the company you work for, you will never be happy there.
I agree wholeheartedly, but with one small caveat:
If you automatically believe that a company’s stated values and goals are really that company’s values and goals, then you’re an idiot.
Want a quick example? (Sure you do.) Newspapers are supposed to inform people and contribute to public discourse.
My local paper’s editorial page and online comments section. The articles and letters on the Dayton Daily News’ editorial page vacillate between quite conservative and quite liberal. The comments on their webpages tend to be godawful and embarrassing near-flamewars (recent example here). Neither one of these actually helps public discourse. In the words of Jon Stewart, they’re hurting America. (See the video here.)
But damn, those editorial pages will sure get polarized folks buying papers. And the comment flamewars gets people to go back to their site… and the bazillion ads all get another impression. The real values and goals? Making money – even if it cheapens public discourse.