Crowdfunding for history book

js at cimmeri.com js at cimmeri.com
Thu Feb 12 10:22:37 CST 2015



On 2/11/2015 7:26 PM, Steve Algernon wrote:
>> That begs the question as to whether it really needs doing it all.
> One of my favorite books, and one that I return to year after year, is 'Hackers' by Steven Levy.  I read this book in high school in the 80s and it helped set my life direction. I'm not alone - I think there was an article about John Carmack being influenced by it as well, and when I was interviewing a few years ago, the founder of the company I visited also called out the book  "Have you read this!?".  I'm glad that book was written. Would / could Evan's be as seminal?
*
I know the "Hackers" book you reference, 
but I kinda doubt that "mobile 
computing" has the intrigue, mystique, 
and scope that the story of the computer 
revolution's original hackers does..   
The only way, of course, to answer that 
question, is to let the market 
(crowdsourcing, in this instance?) decide.


*
>> Point taken, but I found the tone of Evan's message (and others of his recently) to be overly self-aggrandizing and whiny at the same time.   If he's going to post in a public forum, the forum is entitled to have its reactions.   I'm not asking anyone else to agree with or share in my reaction.
> We're all aspies on this bus...
>
> I think this project could be more successful if it had more concrete promises, or allowed a view into its creation.  I've backed and been pleased by the results of several book efforts on Kickstarter, all of which provided incremental updates.

*Yes, I agree.  If the tone wasn't "I'm 
such an important dude, it doesn't 
compute why I'm broke so please fund me 
to write this book" and instead were, 
"hey, this is what I'm thinking of 
doing... here's my outline of the 
project... here's who might be 
interested in this book.. here's what 
steps I'll take to meet this goal... 
would you please consider helping fund 
this project?"  then it would be a much 
easier sell.

- J.


*



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