James Mowery's Most Notables

James Mowery

Tue, 08 Oct 2013 00:35:02 -0400

Looking for my new site? Check out my official home on the web: James Mowery.

Complex Theorem Progress

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 22:54:00 -0500

As some of you already know, I abandoned my personal website — OnlyJames — in order to pursue a clean slate. My new home will be Complex Theorem. As it stands, it is nothing more than a landing page. Behind the scenes, however, there is a different story.

Work on this project has been steady going for the past few months, and as most creatives will tell you, the hardest thing to do is to remain satisfied with your personal website. I am no exception. The good news, however, is that I am now at the point where it’s mostly about connecting all the pieces and making sure they work together: Python is the underlying language, Flask is the framework, MongoDB is the data store, and Redis is the caching layer.

Yet there are a few decisions that I have yet to finalize:

Should this Tumblr account serve as my primary blog, whereas Complex Theorem would host my essays and other long-form content?
Should I host my blog and long-form content on Complex Theorem together, thus negating the point of even having a Tumblr?
Should I host the blog and long-form content on Complex Theorem but keep them separate, while giving users a choice in the matter?

Those are not easy questions to answer.

I intend on Complex Theorem being my home on the Web for years and years into the future, because switching between platforms and domains is truly a pain in the ass. But I don’t want to screw this up. Once I make a decision I’m sticking to it. I just have to… you know… make that decision already.

Payment statistics for the Humble Frozen Synapse...

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 06:21:05 -0400

Payment statistics for the Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle are broken down by operating system. It’s worth noting that when users are asked to “name their own price,” Linux users — in this particular instance — are willing to part with more money than Mac users, who are currently second, and Windows users, who are currently last.

I witnessed a tornado that touched down in Windsor, VA. This is...

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 12:19:36 -0400

I witnessed a tornado that touched down in Windsor, VA. This is video that I took — which was aired on WAVY, FOX, and other television networks — and this was my first experience with tornadoes. I wouldn’t describe it as terrifying, but it was unbelievable. In the end, however, I can check “storm chaser” off my bucket list, even though I still want to go storm chasing (for real) in the future.

Comma Usage and Placement

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 23:26:42 -0500

Not long ago I e-mailed Tobias Wolff, a Stanford professor and writer of the novels The Barracks Thief and Old School, for advice about comma usage and placement.

This was his response:

Dear Mr. Mowery,

Good question. These days I write with more attention to rhythm than to rules, which I have metabolized to the extent that I am hardly aware of them. As it happens I frequently tussle with NYer editors over commas. I think the Strunk & White house style sometimes leads to a halting, prissy, pedantic tone. For instance, I would simply write, The mall was closed, so without much thought they decided to go to the movies. Read Cormac McCarthy, Hemingway, Faulkner – they use commas as they will, much less frequently than the NYer would demand, to create their own music and velocity; and I am never in doubt as to their meaning. I take my lessons from writers rather than style manuals, though a grounding in the basics is essential before you begin to deviate from them.

best,

Tobias Wolff

His advice enlightened me: rhythm over rules.

78 Keys

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 23:08:07 -0500

These 78 keys of Chinese plastic on my Macbook are the closest I may ever feel to an aura of divulgence that I rarely experienced before. As I sit here on my bed and depress these blocks that transpose electrical signals into symbolical meanings, I realize something — something quite important. It is only when I’m alone and at my worst that I manage to reach the world with my best.

My writing is both blessing and curse.

Writer's Block

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 00:10:24 -0500

I can’t write anything on this godforsaken Tumblr account without backtracking. I have ten drafts in the queue, with well-thought ideas within them all. But I can’t finish a single one of them. What is wrong with me?

My last resort is to write about nothing — prepare to be blown away.

OK, writer’s block isn’t exactly nothing. It’s more like a pain in the ass — even more so for a professional writer of four years. The inability to write on the spot hampers my creativity and my work.

Writer’s block only affects my personal writing, though. Give me an assignment, and I’ll give you a quality product; give me the free will to write about anything, and I’ll get back to you on that. I just can’t find a way to make the paragraphs flow..

It isn’t only with my blogging: I have been fairly quiet on Twitter, Facebook, Quora, and other social media sites. Maybe I’m turning into an anti-social freak. Maybe I need a good kick in the ass. Or maybe a week long vacation to Disneyland would do the trick.

In the end, the only thing I can do is push through the writer’s block to reach the promise land. Can anyone out there relate?

Being Better

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:57:00 -0500

Merlin Mann wrote an inspiring piece about how to be better. In it, he noted a few things he attempts to do everyday to better himself. Some of them I already do, and some of them I believe I will start to do. However, all of these these are things that we all could (and probably should) do to better ourselves. So, why not

identify and destroy small-return bullshit;

shut off anything that’s noisier than it is useful;

make brutally fast decisions about what I don’t need to be doing;

avoid anything that feels like fake sincerity (esp. where it may touch money);

demand personal focus on making good things;

put a handful of real people near the center of everything.

Sound advice for a world with too many good things but not enough great things.

“The geek is now damn cool.” It’s amazing how...

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 21:25:00 -0500

“The geek is now damn cool.”

It’s amazing how well I can relate to this video. I love it!

The Write Stuff

Sun, 02 Jan 2011 19:47:00 -0500

I don’t write because I want to; I write because I have to.

I love expressing my own opinions. I pretty much have an opinion about everything — from how ridiculous politics are to how fake reality television truly has become. Writing just so happens to be the most effective medium for me to do just that. I guess you can say I’ve become quite good at it.

I have been writing professionally since 2007, when I decided that writing was my calling in life. I just so happen to be incredibly fortunate that I was at an age and time where writing on the Internet could be a lucrative business opportunity. I studied Computer Science while in college, but I also took the time to study English skills just as often, if not even more, in my spare time. This is the result.

I would like to think that I write primarily for myself; however, I’d be lying if I didn’t mention that I love the attention and notoriety that writing brings me. Maybe all writers crave the attention, but I’m not sure. I do know, however, that I thrive on it. It is essentially the voice that I have created to make up for the one I never had in my past.

You see, when I was younger, I had plenty of opinions. But I was rarely the type to voice them. I guess you could say I was a quiet and lonesome individual. I was a true social outcast in every meaning of the word: I kept to myself, and I actively avoided social situations, which, in retrospect, was a huge mistake. It took me a long time to realize that I needed to change.

But change I did.

I have been writing, talking, traveling, exercising, enjoying life, and constantly bettering myself since my days at Windsor High School. I am no longer afraid to enter unique social situations, some of which could make a grown person pee their pants. I enjoy the challenge. But some of the things I have done have even shocked me. For example, I worked my ass off to lose 100+ pounds of weight in the span of a single year through 2009 and 2010. This was something I thought would never be possible. But I am never quite satisfied with what I have done, and I want to do more.

My work life has also changed significantly: from writing for some of the world’s most-read Web-based publications in their respective industries — Mashable, CMSWire, Performancing (now BloggingPro) — to creating my very own startup (more on that in a future blurb). The fact that I have been able to monetize my writing and support myself is incredible to me, and something I never take for granted. I have had the opportunity to talk to Fortune 500 CEOs, network with some of the brightest minds in the technology industry today, and share my thoughts on the tech industry with potentially hundreds of millions of readers, who I also so deeply appreciate.

I owe all of this to my writing.

In fact, it has almost gotten to the point where I do these amazing, creative, and sometimes crazy things simply because I know I will have the opportunity to write about them. I get to share my experiences with the world, knowing that maybe at least one person will be able to relate to that experience. To me, these are the greatest feelings in the world.

And that, my friends, is why I have to write — it is what I love to do and it makes me happy.

So what is this, then?

This will become the new home for all my future writing that isn’t business related, of which will be making an appearance on the newly redesigned OnlyJames.com. I have traditionally written 2,000 to 3,000 word essays, but I promise not to ramble on nearly that much on Tumblr. I promise to keep it fun, easy, and interesting. It’s Tumblr, after all!

"Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted."

Sun, 02 Jan 2011 19:41:00 -0500

“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.”

- Italian Proverb