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My children’s book on technology raised 100k within 24 hours – here’s how

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41–50 of 118 posts

Re: My children’s book on technology raised 100k within 24 hours – here’s how

#41
post #20
post #7

> Start a blog where you share progress on your project. This will hold you accountable and let people know what you’re working on. For a long time I wrote off the idea of having a blog because it seemed vain. I don't usually have any great ideas that anyone else needs to know about, and my trials of learning new things are just the same as everyone else's. However, over the past few months I've realized that I was d…

How do you think the chronological, little-bit-at-a-time blog format compares to longer articles, or books? I've found individual blog posts, linked to from sites like HN or found in web searches, to be greatly helpful, but often when I go to a blog like one of those that you shared here, and try to start reading it from the top, it feels disorganized; the content isn't presented in any ordering that necessarily make…

When blogs first started getting popular, I thought, "Man, chronological organization is the dumbest possible structure. Somebody will soon come up with something better." And so I never started a blog. Now I just feel dumb for waiting.

The best solutions I've seen for this are a) organized post series (e.g., [1]) and posts that aggregate a bunch of things previously written (e.g. [2]). I'd like to see people take that further, so if people have other examples of interesting approaches, I'd love it if they could reply with them.

I will say that editorial work is hard. As I've experimented with writing a book, it's clear to me that whatever I think the plan is up front, it's going to change, and that refactoring the structure as I go is expensive. It's cheaper to do it in large batches. So I think most blogs will just always suck in this regard. I suspect the future is in collaboration, where the author and blog readers can collectively build and maintain the table of contents and intro material. That would mirror the writer/editor collaboration that goes into books.

[1] http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/what-makes-the-u... [2] This is only an ok-ish example, but it's the only one I could think of: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2014/02/04/how-to-get-p...

Re: My children’s book on technology raised 100k within 24 hours – here’s how

#42

I'm pretty sure the only reason this is getting so much funding is because the majority of computer science folk are horny men who are glossing over the dreamhouse attire / makeup / presentation put on in the video. "Hi I'm little Ruby and I wear polka-dots and pink lipstick, let me be your fantasy" That said, I did fund it, because I'm a horny coder and Linda is very sexy.

People are subconsciously affected by sexual drives. Welcome to 1880. What's your point?

Re: My children’s book on technology raised 100k within 24 hours – here’s how

#43

This is really inspiring! I had no idea that Linda co-founded Rails Girls, and for some reason I had formed the impression that she was an illustrator before becoming a programmer. I didn't know that she had learned to draw so that she could create the book. This advice is golden, and it's pretty cool to see such joy, enthusiasm, and generosity rewarded.

Makes me think that maybe I could write the code equivalent of "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" using Java

I would totally buy that book. Also consider doing a software version of "Go the Fuck to Sleep": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-vDYOpkoWE#t=0m40s

Bonus points if you can get Samuel Jackson to narrate it.

Re: My children’s book on technology raised 100k within 24 hours – here’s how

#44
post #29

I like the idea and I backed it. Book for kids can be as simple as picture books. Parents and mentors are the one supposed to help them to learn the hard stuff. But I also want to say that I have some feedback for the video. I just thought there was too much "smiles". I don't know how to put it: but it's strange and weird to see someone posting a video of her smiling like literally every few seconds, throwing things…

I suspect that the goal was to show the author's personality. The word that comes to mind is playful. This is a book for 5 to 7 year olds. You want it to be playful to capture children's attention and imagination. Judging from number of sexist comments around this was misinterpreted in number of wrong ways. Fortunately, as the campaign numbers proved there are many people who believe in the presented idea and in Linda being able to deliver a great book that will inspire kids to learn even more about the technology!

Re: My children’s book on technology raised 100k within 24 hours – here’s how

#45
post #27

Am I really the only one who things that she is annoying and fake? I literally threw up when I tried to watch her playing Manic Pixie Dream Girl-role. Ruby and Snow Leopard? Really? This book will be completely useless in 5 years when technologies change. She should have wrote about basic CS principles instead. But I guess most of the women just cannot think logically. And that's probably why there are so few women i…

People are going to pigpile on you b/c you are wrong about the longevity of the tech information and sarcastic remarks about women, etc. I DO agree with the cringe-factor, though. I really didn't like watching her adjust her purple knit slippers, giggle and fluff her hair, etc.. It was like watching any other advertisement involving models which I don't like either and is one of the reasons I don't watch television.…

I have to disagree about the country part. I didn't hear her trying to halo at all (whether or not that's an effect) - I heard her saying that that's her culture, her influences, and her inspiration. Plus, you really cannot take anything away from the Nordic countries when it comes to innovative computer applications. I would add to her list the whole Demo Scene, which laid much of the technical foundation for the game industry boom of the late '90's and '00's. And of course, Minecraft, which is the biggest realistic, interactive, shared cellular automata world simulation that I'm aware of.

Re: My children’s book on technology raised 100k within 24 hours – here’s how

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me think that maybe I could write the code equivalent of "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" using Java

The method call was coming from... inside the method!

–Then who was call?

Re: My children’s book on technology raised 100k within 24 hours – here’s how

#48

Am I really the only one who things that she is annoying and fake? I literally threw up when I tried to watch her playing Manic Pixie Dream Girl-role. Ruby and Snow Leopard? Really? This book will be completely useless in 5 years when technologies change. She should have wrote about basic CS principles instead. But I guess most of the women just cannot think logically. And that's probably why there are so few women i…

Probably not the only one, but 100k in 24h say that you are in vast minority. There are many books about "CS principles" or programming or ruby or whatever. There're books for kids, there're good ones written by well known computer scientists. It's not some unique book that raises funds, it's marketing.

Re: My children’s book on technology raised 100k within 24 hours – here’s how

#49
post #29

I like the idea and I backed it. Book for kids can be as simple as picture books. Parents and mentors are the one supposed to help them to learn the hard stuff. But I also want to say that I have some feedback for the video. I just thought there was too much "smiles". I don't know how to put it: but it's strange and weird to see someone posting a video of her smiling like literally every few seconds, throwing things…

I had similar issues with the video. I normally just ignore Kickstarter videos, but watched this one hoping to learn more about what was in the book and workbook. It definitely didn't solve my problem, and there was something about the forced gaiety that felt a little creepy to me.

What would have been much more effective for me was videos of kids actually working their way through the materials. Lots of potential for visual appeal and warm fuzzies, but practical and on point.

Re: My children’s book on technology raised 100k within 24 hours – here’s how

#50
post #27

Am I really the only one who things that she is annoying and fake? I literally threw up when I tried to watch her playing Manic Pixie Dream Girl-role. Ruby and Snow Leopard? Really? This book will be completely useless in 5 years when technologies change. She should have wrote about basic CS principles instead. But I guess most of the women just cannot think logically. And that's probably why there are so few women i…

People are going to pigpile on you b/c you are wrong about the longevity of the tech information and sarcastic remarks about women, etc. I DO agree with the cringe-factor, though. I really didn't like watching her adjust her purple knit slippers, giggle and fluff her hair, etc.. It was like watching any other advertisement involving models which I don't like either and is one of the reasons I don't watch television.…

> Perhaps it is because there isn't enough "cute" out there in the world already?

Exactly the opposite. There's plenty of "cute" and that's also the reason why: people buy it.

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