Art Gillespie

Shut The Fuck Up And Make Shit

2011-04-28T00:00:00-07:00

I have a new methodology for you¹.

It’s called “Shut The Fuck Up And Make Shit.”

I’m not going to a spend a lot of time explaining the methodology because a) it’s pretty fucking self-explanatory, and b) I need to Shut The Fuck Up And Make Shit myself².

You don’t need to buy my book on Shutting The Fuck Up And Making Shit, because there won’t be one. I’m too busy Shutting The Fuck Up And Making Shit to write it, and I dearly hope that the audience for such a book is too busy Shutting The Fuck Up And Making Shit to read it.

I won’t be presenting at conferences on Shutting The Fuck Up And Making Shit, because going to conferences and telling people to Shut The Fuck Up And Make Shit is not Shutting The Fuck Up And Making Shit.

The reasoning behind Shut The Fuck Up And Make Shit is simple: Making shit is hard. Really hard. Want to make a living making shit? Holy shit that’s hard. Want to find people to help you make shit? That’s, like, impossible-hard. Want to make shit that makes the world a better place? Hard, hard, hard. And, I don’t mean 80-hour weeks hard, I mean 10,000 hours of practice hard.

Because you’re going to suck. No matter which shit you decide to make, it’s going to suck. It’s going to be humiliating and you’re going to lose sleep thinking about how much you suck and some people—bless their black hearts—are going to be dicks about how much you suck and you’re going to worry about the rent and the outrageous preschool tuition and whether or not you’re being a responsible adult and it’s going to seem like everyone you follow on twitter has this shit down better than you³. And all that shit is hard. Really hard.

And the only thing for it is to Shut. The. Fuck. Up. And. Make. Shit.

You know what’s not hard? Sitting in your fucking Aeron reading books and blog posts and tweets about how to make making shit less hard. That’s easy. But thinking about making shit is not the same as making shit. Planning to make shit is not the same as making shit. Not even tweeting about the best way to think or plan about making shit is the same as making shit.

Ultimately, only making shit will teach you how to make shit.

You just have to Shut The Fuck Up and do it.

Hi, I’m Art Gillespie. I Shut The Fuck Up And Make Shit For iOS. If you’d like me to Shut The Fuck Up And Make Shit for iOS for your organization, Shut The Fuck Up and get in touch.

Well, new isn’t exactly right. In fact, I’d venture that Shutting The Fuck Up And Making Shit is pretty much how everything that’s ever been done got done. Ever.
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Writing this manifesto is technically Shutting The Fuck Up And Making Shit, I guess, but it’s the worst kind. When the shit you’re making is really navel-gazing about how to make, you might as well go read a book on pivoting on your custdev.
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They probably don’t by virtue of the fact they’re spending so much fucking time carefully crafting their image in 140 character vignettes.⁴.
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Mea fucking culpa.
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Open Letter To The Community

2011-04-13T00:00:00-07:00

Dearest Neighbors,

I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that there are still times during the day when there aren’t multiple dogs going completely batshit-insane barking. I mean, as a community we’re doing pretty well—I think we’ve got it to about 80-85% coverage right now, but surely we can do better! I ride my bike through neighborhoods every single day that have absolute 100% dog-barking coverage at all hours and it makes me sad that we’re not keeping up.

There are still times of the day and night when I can go out on my back patio or play with my kid on the playground without getting barked at incessantly. Some days, I even get to sleep until my alarm goes off! And just this evening, I’m embarrassed to say, the UPS guy only had one dog going insane as he walked around making deliveries! One dog! I think we can agree that this just isn’t up to our community’s standards. For my part, I won’t be happy until I can never step out on my patio, walk up the main path, get through a quiet dinner with my family or sleep past 7 a.m without hearing the dulcet sounds of my canine neighbors.

Perhaps dog owners can get together and coordinate so we have better bark coverage¹? If someone can recommend a particularly bark-prone breed (You guys are obviously the experts!) I’m happy to visit a breeder, get a couple and do my part to contribute.

Thanks for your attention,

Art

Is it time to consider a DBCC²? I think maybe it is.
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Dog Barking Coverage Committee… 24/7/365 coverage by 2012!
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No bathrooms. Try Amazon.

2011-04-04T00:00:00-07:00

Heh.

via Orren Merton

Scott Adams—Better than Dilbert

2011-04-01T00:00:00-07:00

Scott Adams once again demonstrates why his blog is better than Dilbert

I’m not trying to move you to my point of view; I’m trying to add diversity to your portfolio of thoughts. In the short term, I hope it’s stimulating enough to be entertaining. Long term, the best ideas probably come from people who have the broadest exposure to different views

Anger Management

2011-04-01T00:00:00-07:00

In which I run up against my anger management issues.

A Better Outcome

2011-03-26T00:00:00-07:00

Tim O’Reilly gets it:

Let’s say my goal is to sell 10,000 copies of something. And let’s say that if by putting DRM in it I sell 10,000 copies and I make my money, and if by having no DRM 100,000 copies go into circulation and I still sell 10,000 copies. Which of those is the better outcome? I think having 100,000 in circulation and selling 10,000 is way better than having just the 10,000 that are paid for and nobody else benefits.

Tim O’Reilly on Piracy, Tinkering, and the Future of the Book