brainbaking-com-u5mnoz.txt (6001B)
1 [test-img] 2 [1]skip to main content 3 [2]Brain Baking navigation toggle 4 5 • [4] Brain Baking 6 • [5] Archives 7 • [6] Subscribe 8 9 • [7] Works 10 • [8] About 11 • [9] Links 12 13 [10] 14 15 Publish Your Work 16 17 [11] 31 January 2024 | [12]braindump 18 19 As an electrical and mechanical engineer, my late father-in-law was an expert 20 in crafting home-grown black boxes that meticulously—and sometimes also 21 miraculously—executed certain tasks in and around the house, such as 22 automatically opening and closing the curtains based on the position of the sun 23 (that included LEGO Technic radar work), routing audio and video from the 24 doorbell to the TV or smartphone when someone pressed the button, or mediating 25 the central heating based on too many factors. He also loved building things 26 that weren’t really needed, just for fun: how about a full-size sixties jukebox 27 emulated with a couple of Arduino boards, where each mechanical piece was 28 hand-cut? 29 30 When I asked him why he doesn’t take pictures of each project to document and 31 publish them online, to inspire others, he was never interested. Most of these 32 projects aren’t well-documented privately either, leaving us now with 33 unsolvable puzzles when things break. But his ideas, as with all ideas, were 34 gradually formed by studying ideas and projects of others, so why not come full 35 circle to again share what you’ve made? I never really got an answer as to why 36 not. 37 38 When I talk to friends about blogging, or more generally “putting stuff out 39 there”, the vast majority of them don’t care, and that comes across as very 40 strange to me, since I do. Not everyone has the urge [13]to write in public. 41 Yet publishing your work comes with so many advantages that I don’t even know 42 where to begin to list them. I think many people underestimate the value of 43 sharing what you’ve made. 44 45 Austin Kleon wrote a whole book about this [14]called Show Your Work!, which, 46 as Austin puts it, is a good starting point for people who hate the very idea 47 of self-promotion. Perhaps I should have given a copy to my father-in-law, 48 although I doubt that would have changed anything. He was content tinkering in 49 his cellar without letting the world know what he made. Yet if he did, more 50 people would have made something based on his work. And that feeling of 51 contributing is amazing. 52 53 It doesn’t take a genius or a huge project to make a bit of an impact. Just 54 influencing your own “tribe”, as Seth Godin likes to call it, is more than 55 enough to get a positive feedback loop going. As a silly example, I fooled 56 around with hacking a [15]Phomemo M02 thermal printer a year ago, and I just 57 found out that there’s a Node CLI module on GitHub that thanks my article for 58 pointing them in the right direction. Conventional contributions to existing 59 open-source projects is of course the obvious other example, but it’s not even 60 needed to go that far. I sometimes just write about things I tried—and often 61 failed—to do, and it always puts a smile on my face when I notice someone 62 picked that up. 63 64 I don’t create or publish in the hopes of influencing others. I create things 65 because I have an urge to create. But it sure is great to help others along the 66 way, however small my contribution might be. I don’t care about being found 67 online and I am certainly not actively pushing my stuff down others’ throats 68 (Kleon’s rule #7: Don’t turn into human spam). I love reading about the 69 creation process of others. I love sharing my creation process. It’s almost 70 second nature: it feels like a wasted opportunity to do something good in this 71 world if I didn’t. 72 73 If you made something, great! Why don’t you tell us about it? It’s simple, you 74 just need to hire a VPS, configure iptables, download and customize a Hugo 75 theme, write front matter and markdown, have a CI pipeline setup, and install 76 Nginx. Ah, dang it! 77 78 [16] You Might Also Like... 79 80 • [17]On Writing For Yourself In Public 06 Nov 2023 81 • [18]Phomemo Thermal Printing On MacOS 03 Feb 2023 82 83 [19] Bio and Support 84 85 [20] A photo of Me! 86 87 I'm [21]Wouter Groeneveld, a Brain Baker, and I love the smell of freshly baked 88 thoughts (and bread) in the morning. I sometimes convince others to bake their 89 brain (and bread) too. 90 91 If you found this article amusing and/or helpful, you can support me via [22] 92 PayPal or [23]Ko-Fi. I also like to hear your feedback via [24]Mastodon or 93 email. Thanks! 94 95 JavaScript is disabled. I use it to obfuscate my e-mail, keeping spambots at 96 bay. 97 Reach me using: [firstname] at [this domain]. 98 99 ↑ [25]Top [26]Brain Baking bv | [27]Archives | [28]© CC BY 4.0 License. 100 101 102 References: 103 104 [1] https://brainbaking.com/post/2024/01/publish-your-work/#top 105 [2] https://brainbaking.com/post/2024/01/publish-your-work/# 106 [4] https://brainbaking.com/ 107 [5] https://brainbaking.com/archives 108 [6] https://brainbaking.com/subscribe 109 [7] https://brainbaking.com/works 110 [8] https://brainbaking.com/about 111 [9] https://brainbaking.com/links 112 [10] https://brainbaking.com/ 113 [11] https://brainbaking.com/post/2024/01/publish-your-work/ 114 [12] https://brainbaking.com/categories/braindump 115 [13] https://brainbaking.com/post/2023/11/on-writing-for-yourself-in-public/ 116 [14] https://austinkleon.com/show-your-work/ 117 [15] https://brainbaking.com/post/2023/02/phomemo-thermal-printing-on-macos/ 118 [16] https://brainbaking.com/post/2024/01/publish-your-work/#related 119 [17] https://brainbaking.com/post/2023/11/on-writing-for-yourself-in-public/ 120 [18] https://brainbaking.com/post/2023/02/phomemo-thermal-printing-on-macos/ 121 [19] https://brainbaking.com/post/2024/01/publish-your-work/#bio 122 [20] https://brainbaking.com/ 123 [21] https://brainbaking.com/about 124 [22] https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=R2WTKY7G9V2KQ 125 [23] https://ko-fi.com/woutergroeneveld 126 [24] https://dosgame.club/@jefklak 127 [25] https://brainbaking.com/post/2024/01/publish-your-work/#header 128 [26] https://brainbaking.com/bv 129 [27] https://brainbaking.com/archives 130 [28] https://brainbaking.com/copyright-and-tracking-policy