Activity timeline
January 26, 2010
Garrett added Let My People Go Surfing to his library.
Garrett added Ambient Findability to his library.
Writer's block is just a symptom of feeling like you have nothing say, combined with the rather weird idea that you should feel the need to say something.
The sovereignty you have over your work will inspire far more people than teh actual content ever will. Howe your own sovereignty inspires other people to find their own sovereignty, their own sense of freedom and possibility, will give the work far more power than the work's objective merits ever will.
June 30, 2009
Garrett added Ignore Everybody to his library.
January 29, 2009
October 29, 2008
Constructive criticism, of course, is a terrific tool. If a critic tells you, "I don't like it" or "This is disappointing,", he's done no good at all. In fact, quite the opposite is true. He's used his power to injure without giving you any information to help you do better next time. Worse, he hasn't given those listening any data with which to make a thoughtful decision on their own. Not only that, but by refusing to reveal the basis for his criticism, he's being a coward, because there's no way to challenge his opinion.
August 8, 2008
Garrett added Designing Interfaces to his library.
August 5, 2008
Garrett added Deploying Rails Applications to his library.
Garrett added Rails Recipes to his library.
Garrett added MySQL Cookbook to his library.
Garrett added Bulletproof Ajax to his library.
Garrett added DOM Scripting to his library.
I really enjoyed the first portion of the book, but once I starting getting into the latter half, I quickly lost interest. The first half was full of pragmatic advice to help you rethink your approach, but the second half felt about one step removed from sleazy get-rich-quick schemes.
There was no concept of finding something you love and then making money as a side-effect of doing what you love every day. It was more about techniques for making money than it was about creating something meaningful.
I'd definitely recommend the first half, but philosophically the second half felt too sleazy.
jnunemaker replies...
Completely agree. Great review. The first half was inspiring for me, especially as I was reading it right as I left my "normal" job but the second half fizzled out quick for me as it felt infomercial-ish.
urbanplanter replies...
thanks for your thoughts. i have read the first chunk and I am in total agreement, I am interested to see if my reading of the 2nd half yields the same thoughts.