J.D. Moyer

science fiction author, beatmaker, against fascism

Category: Creative Work/Career Page 23 of 24

2010 Blog Recap, and Why I Blog

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On January 2, 2011

In Creative Work/Career, Metablog, Personal Updates, Writing

Zooming out on 2010.

I started this blog in December of 2009, so I’ve just completed my first full year of blogging (or, as I prefer to think of it, writing and self-publishing essays).  I prefer “essayist” over “blogger” not out of pretension, but because I think it more accurately describes what I’ve been doing; writing about specific topics that I find interesting, in a way that I hope will be interesting, entertaining, and/or useful to others.  Not much personal, day to day stuff.  No recipes.  There’s nothing wrong with that style of blog, it’s just not for me.

So far this site has had about 30,000 unique views.  That’s not a lot, but it’s much more than the “just family and friends” traffic that I expected.  It’s gratifying to know that a wide range of people have enjoyed reading at least some of my posts.  So, thank you readers!

The biggest traffic day was about 4,000 views, from a link someone posted on reddit.com.

I don’t make any money from blogging, nor do I expect to.  I pay WordPress a small amount to host the site, and small additional fees to display the URL as jdmoyer.com (without “wordpress” in the URL) and to suppress advertising (which is how WordPress makes money from the blogs it hosts).  I’m happy to pay these fees so I don’t have to deal with the technical hassles of blog hosting, comment management, etc.  The hosted WordPress tools are great.

Haven't written about this yet, but I will.

Why do I it?  Since I started this site, my mind has been overflowing with ideas for new essays and posts.  I have a spreadsheet going with ideas for about fifty entries … some of which I’ll probably never get to.  I don’t know how long this particular vein of abundant inspiration will continue, but I’m enjoying the ride while it lasts.

The world “outlet” comes to mind.  Not so much creative outlet, but rather persuasive outlet.  I can try to convince others that my opinion is worth paying attention to, without cornering them at a party and lecturing their ear off.  Readers can stop reading whenever they want, without any social awkwardness.  They (you) can freely lurk, or comment.

It’s interesting to watch the stats and see which posts people find interesting.  Some topics that interest me greatly don’t seem to interest other people much at all (or the people who might be interested haven’t yet found this site), and some posts that I wrote quickly and without much thought have been read many times.  For what it’s worth, here are the top five posts (out of about sixty) of 2010 (by number of views).

1. Sleep Experiment – A Month With No Artificial Light
(candle wax, bimodal sleep, feeling unreasonably happy)

2. How I Cured My Asthma With One Simple Lifestyle Change
(a diet change turned around my health and fixed my breathing problems)

3. Minecraft — It’s in Your Head
(a low-res videogame that took over my life for awhile)

4. A Meta-analysis of Kooky Diets, Part III — PALEO!
(3 very fit guys telling you why you’re better off without grains)

5. The Singularity Already Happened – Part I
(my thoughts on the nerd rapture)

 

Or maybe it happened thousands of years ago?

Creating a Personal Economic Plan

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On December 17, 2010

In Advice for Young People, Creative Work/Career, Money/Personal Finance

This post is a continuation of What’s Your Personal Economic Plan?

What Can You Do? What Suits Your Temperament?

Now there's a plan.

There are a few ways to make money.  There is passive income, which involves no effort beyond cashing checks.  This could be from investment income (interest and dividends), rents (if rents exceed maintenance expenses), passive ownership share in a profitable business, and royalties (from music, books, and performances).

There is the possibility of having a job, with salary and benefits.

There is freelance, or independent work, where you charge a client for services delivered (on a job, hourly, or daily basis).

There is the entrepreneurial route, starting, or gaining an ownership stake in, a profitable business.

Your spouse, significant other, or family might be willing to support you, but this can mean sacrificing a lot of economic autonomy.

There’s also crime, but in the end crime doesn’t pay.

Part of creating a strong personal economic plan is understanding your own temperament.  What are you suited for, and more importantly, what are you not suited for?  The big “traps” in my opinion are as follows:

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What's Your Personal Economic Plan?

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On December 15, 2010

In Advice for Young People, Creative Work/Career, Money/Personal Finance

College grads circa 1892.

I clearly remember the excitement and difficulties of my first year or two out of college.  There was one day in particular — I remember feeling things couldn’t get any worse (which, I now believe, is never true, things can always get worse, and conversely, they can always get better).  That particular day in 1993 I had no job, no car, and nowhere to live (I was staying at my mom’s place in Berkeley in a spare room).  My recently completed undergraduate degree was in Rhetoric & Communications — not exactly a fast track to a lucrative career.  My prospects were poor, and what I remember about that particular day was that two different girls dumped me.  Should I even try to explain that?  I don’t think so.  At the time it felt like icing on the cake — my cake of personal misery.

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The Story of "The Dive"

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On November 12, 2010

In Creative Work/Career, Electronic Music

A frame from Kia Simon’s music video of “The Dive”

A couple months ago Spesh and I received an email with a link to a demo.  This isn’t unusual — we get many submissions each week to Loöq Records — but this track in particular was a bootleg remix of a track we had already published.  A bootleg is an unsolicited “illegal” remix — it is made by chopping up bits of the finished track instead of using the individual remix parts or “stems” (supplied by the label or original artist).

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Loöq Records Behind-the-Scenes Update #1

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On October 23, 2010

In Creative Work/Career, Electronic Music, Music Business

Click here if you want to go straight to the free music.

Spesh and I have been running Loöq Records for 12 years (since our distortion-heavy techno-house debut album Tube Drivers in 1998).  What started out as a hobby has become an important part of my identity, not to mention an occasional source of significant income.  If you’re interested in more background, I’ve written a bit about the history of the label here (Angles of Estrangement post), and the business side of things here (Business Advice for Young Artists post).  I’ve also written about why I dropped out of DJ’ing to focus on producing music, running Loöq Records, and other creative pursuits (like writing) here.  Today I’m just going to mention what’s going on currently, and give a preview of what we’ve got planned for the rest of this quarter and the first part of 2011.

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