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Work at the edge of your range

blog.ayjay.org

21–30 of 44 posts

Re: Work at the edge of your range

#21
post #14
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This holds true for nearly all physical activities. Was mountain biking in Whistler a couple weekends ago, and my riding mate broke his collarbone due to riding a trail that was at the edge of his range.

But glory...

Well he was witnessed.

Re: Work at the edge of your range

#22

"Resource Limit Is Reached"... Wow, this guy really practices what he preaches. But, seriously, why not use Blogger. Operates at Google scale, absolutely free.

Ew blogger is so gross and hard to customize, though. I say this as someone who used it extensively for years, and tried to go full Tim Ferriss mode on it.

Found wordpress better for that. Now I feel like I should just set up a database and some sort of blogging app on my own. Ugh, so many sideprojects, so little time / focus.

Anyway just look how ugly - ablate.blogspot.com I never could figure out how to just make it less... shit.

PS if anybody knows a good way to set up mass-redirect for all my blogspot posts so I can finally get them off blogspot, I'm open ears.

Re: Work at the edge of your range

#23
post #22

"Resource Limit Is Reached"... Wow, this guy really practices what he preaches. But, seriously, why not use Blogger. Operates at Google scale, absolutely free.

Ew blogger is so gross and hard to customize, though. I say this as someone who used it extensively for years , and tried to go full Tim Ferriss mode on it. Found wordpress better for that. Now I feel like I should just set up a database and some sort of blogging app on my own. Ugh, so many sideprojects, so little time / focus. Anyway just look how ugly - ablate.blogspot.com I never could figure out how to just make…

If a person wanted a no fuss, no thinking required, place to quickly set up a reasonably attractive blog, where could one do it? medium, is that what it is?

Re: Work at the edge of your range

#24

"Resource Limit Is Reached"... Wow, this guy really practices what he preaches. But, seriously, why not use Blogger. Operates at Google scale, absolutely free.

As Wikipedia says: "Alan Jacobs is a scholar of English literature, writer, and literary critic."

He has more than a passing interest in technology as I do in literature, but I think his lack of web optimisation skills or interest for a website that normally isn't deluged under oncoming web traffic is at least as excusable as my writing ones are.

Re: Work at the edge of your range

#25
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ew blogger is so gross and hard to customize, though. I say this as someone who used it extensively for years , and tried to go full Tim Ferriss mode on it. Found wordpress better for that. Now I feel like I should just set up a database and some sort of blogging app on my own. Ugh, so many sideprojects, so little time / focus. Anyway just look how ugly - ablate.blogspot.com I never could figure out how to just make…

If a person wanted a no fuss, no thinking required, place to quickly set up a reasonably attractive blog, where could one do it? medium, is that what it is?

Hmm, I would say wordpress hosted via their website (so not wordpress.org where you download a big php thing and self-host), or one of the many website builder tools like squarespace or whatever. Blogger is free, but I'd argue it's far from "reasonably attractive" by 2017 standards. I don't think it's seen an update in years.

I don't think on medium you can do something like have blog.yourname.com point to your blog, such that you can do blog.yourname.com/writing/how-to-blahblah be one article, etc. Maybe you can't even do that on wordpress.com, now that I think about it.

Re: Work at the edge of your range

#26

"Unless, of course you ruin your voice, but let's not think about that possibility." Yeah, of course. Let's not think about it. Except for we should. Here is my view. Introduce balance in your life - push yourself for a limited amount of time per day, pursuing a specific goal, and do it intelligently. Like when you are in the gym - lift more than you should for longer than you should and get to enjoy 6 months of tend…

I'm pretty sure the author wrote that sentence playfully.

I think I'm comfortable with the notion that pushing forward to greatness in one spot will almost always come at the expense of something else.

We can only do so much. Balance is a hard concept. I think we're largely in agreement, but I don't think Adele would take back her career and her royalties to save herself from a surgery, nor should anyone compel her to do so. If she could learn how to be a superstar while preserving her voice that'd be ideal, but in our professions and lifestyles we don't always get that choice.

That said, I think baseball pitchers have a Tommy John problem. If baseball culture pushes the human body beyond what it can bear because it knows there's another tendon to play with after a year of rehab, you could make a case that there is a systemic issue worth fighting against.

Re: Work at the edge of your range

#27

"Resource Limit Is Reached"... Wow, this guy really practices what he preaches. But, seriously, why not use Blogger. Operates at Google scale, absolutely free.

Because Blogger blogs sometimes randomly disappear. Google it. And because Blogger is free, you get the customer service you pay for. My company lost four years worth of blog posts (about 1,000) when the Blogger Fairy decided to make ours go poof. Now we're self-hosted.

Re: Work at the edge of your range

#28
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a person wanted a no fuss, no thinking required, place to quickly set up a reasonably attractive blog, where could one do it? medium, is that what it is?

Hmm, I would say wordpress hosted via their website (so not wordpress.org where you download a big php thing and self-host), or one of the many website builder tools like squarespace or whatever. Blogger is free, but I'd argue it's far from "reasonably attractive" by 2017 standards. I don't think it's seen an update in years. I don't think on medium you can do something like have blog.yourname.com point to your blog,…

You can on medium, but it's a $75 one-time fee now. They can do top-level or sub domain mappings.

Re: Work at the edge of your range

#29

"Resource Limit Is Reached"... Wow, this guy really practices what he preaches. But, seriously, why not use Blogger. Operates at Google scale, absolutely free.

Or just make a static site using Netlify + Hugo. More power and customization than Github pages, but still full automated and it manages HTTPs for you.

I understand if this is still too much work though. I'm trying to make a setup where I have an API + DB to manage my content via a SPA that can trigger a static site build so it's easier to write from places that aren't my dev machine.

Re: Work at the edge of your range

#30
Just want to point out there is a difference between you pushing yourself to the edge of what you're comfortable with and someone trying to concoct a way to get others to push themselves to the edge of what they are comfortable with.

If you try to do what Gordy did with experienced musicians they'll probably permanently blacklist you.

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