Inchoate Ascendant™

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May 29, 2009

Putting a Name to My Work


I've been thinking about my roles a lot lately. Why, do I pursue the goals that I do? What is my intention in bringing forth what I do? What is the value of what I am putting out there? There are certain things that I try to do when I blog, Twitter, and share and rate links. I'm always keen to elucidate. I love to be informative. I can hope that even if it is only me, that I inspire. With any function comes a title. What kind of titles might I like to be given? Top ranking the short list is the title Provocateur, a name that I really like. To a fair degree I might also be called an Exhibitionist--think clean here. Or how about Elicitator? At a simple and unadorned level I might just be a Signpost. There are worse things than signpost if I point the cool directions.

I think the title of Grand Illuminator would be cool, if I were working for some royal family with the right kind of bent to have anyone working for them with the title of 'Grand Anything'. In any other blog of this sort, by me, or I suppose anyone really, there would be a number of links to my signposts and sites of exhibition. However, this time I will buck the trend, if only because of this. It has been mentioned previously that I am going to take a vacation from blogging. That means that this is the last blog article that I am going to post until July. To find out when in July people will have to look to my Battered Spleen Productions site or go to the Dead Days Calendar, once July rolls around.


Music: Caught Somewhere in Time by Iron Maiden.



May 22, 2009

Invisible Achievements


Last night I completed the first half, well actually the smaller 'half' of a top-secret project. It's something helpful, something useful, but I'm the only one who knows about it or really sees any advantage to it. I could spill the beans about it here and it still would be virtually transparent. So I'll just keep it a secret. The funny thing is I already know of a second revision to it, which I will implement from scratch in the second larger half. Then I will go back and fix what I have done. That's just the way I code web pages. What I am left wondering is this. Is an invisible achievement like this good practice for other projects that should be visible but end up almost entirely ignored? Certainly something for internal distribution isn't ego threatening. It has no impact on obscurity.

A little searching around online provides some interesting looks into obscurity as a word. One site lists antonyms for obscurity as clarity and lucidity, working off of obscured as in blocked from view. The other tack runs the converse of obscurity with words like prominence and fame. Fame is not something I seek particularly. I mean I wouldn't turn it down, but I prefer acknowledgement to it, and of course better sales wouldn't hurt. To that end anyone can check out the Battered Spleen Productions Store. Check out my short story collection and/or download a free copy of my audio story in MP3 format. Yes, the link pauses for ten seconds while you view an ad first. If you can wait for it to forward you to my site, I can always use the ad traffic. Thank you and see you here next week.


Music: The Whistler by Demons & Wizards.



May 15, 2009

Indecisive Decision Making


I have made no decision or headway in determining what I should do with my planned hiatus. I do know that I have to take the time off. There is a lot of work not being done in the background. Technical projects have been sitting almost idle. Projects and conditions are definitely inchoate but they are far from ascending out of that state. I have considered though that I may just leave things idles as I have done in the past. The main site I have thought about having guest bloggers is particularly self-branded. It is R. G. Male's Dark Corners after all. Is it against the grain to delve into someone else's corners? It is also pretty much exclusively articles. Would interviews fit? Would they be a welcome change of pace? Then there are the other sites.

Over at Learning Dark Arts it is much the same with articles, and only the occasional slice of life, especially in the last year where the focus has been nice and tight. I am also less certain of what to ask on the side of setting up interview questions with artists. Some of the questions would be the same as what I would ask an author. Some of the questions wouldn't fit. I also have no familiarity with artist interviews. As for soliciting articles it would take some time to find artists with interesting articles and then approach them to write one for me. Why would they do that? It's a downfall that I have not taken the time to become friends with enough artists, least of all the kind that write about their craft. At this point this very blog would remain idle so perhaps it is a good decision to them all sit.


Music: In A Rush by Quiet Riot.



May 8, 2009

Skating on Quicksand


That is what I compared the last little while has been like to a friend--skating on quicksand. If you slow down too much, you'll sink. You have to keep moving. Of course let it be said clearly that with actual physical quicksand you sink no matter what, unless you can also walk on water so don't come suing me because my metaphor led you astray. Quicksand kills! There, now that the legal part of today's presentation is out of the way... It's getting close to the time where I took a break from blogging last year. I am considering it again, however I am also considering guest bloggers or interviews where I only have to format and post results not write everything from whole cloth. I should have sent out interview questions a week or so ago if I was going that route.

Or perhaps I should not have and inadvertently I've done it right. How long in advance do most authors and artists need to answer some questions? Does it take them more or less time to write a blog? I've been known to write my blogs on the day I post them. I post them in the evening and I don't see the day until the afternoon. Other times I write in advance and only polish on the day. In addition to the writing I also do the tagging and updating of pages. I'll admit I do all of the technical work rather than use blog sites--for most of my work--because the tags leave something to be desired over at Blogger.com, which is from Google. You'd think of all people they could do a tag page that yields all of the articles with that tag. That didn't hold true before I started Inchoate Ascendant.


Music: 2 Minutes to Midnight by Iron Maiden.



May 1, 2009

I Mean Meanings


Getting back to the ideas from "Down the Rabbit Hole" two weeks ago I still do not have any answers to the questions. That deeper note attached to a deeper note has not materialised yet. I know roughly what will go into it, and in the intervening time new information regarding the subject has arisen. Beyond the technical aspects of making links and images for the links there is that layer of meaning. On that front there are some issues that have come to the fore, so to speak, dealing with the meaning imparted from tags attached to the notes and articles in the blogs. It's been mentioned before, but there is a need for defining the exact purpose of a word when using it as a tag, to apply it for a specific meaning or usage of the word. Then there is the step beyond that.

Disambiguation is what it is all about. First there is a tag, then it is defined for a particular use, and then the other uses for that word are held separate, or the other definitions use a different word all together that means the same thing as far as what it is going to express. Either way, two tag files for the same word or two files one word each, there needs to be a launching page, or a page that differentiates the two meanings and directs the user to the idea or tangent that they need to follow. The disambiguation of a word into its meanings should also help define the connection between the different meanings--and related words--especially if the notes attached to the tags share the other similar tags. All of this is as confusing as it sounds, and deserves a continued exploration.


Music: Blood Runs Cold by Def Leppard.
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Robert G. Male
Name: Robert G. Male
Location: Ontario, Canada
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