make something useful

Not sure how useful this rates, but I made an embroidered cushion for my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. The cushion has a plain panel on the front with 60 inside a floral heart. I left the large plain panel on purpose and took a marker along so that everyone could leave a congratulations message for them. It turned out pretty good :)

Paul Graham in his essay Why smart people have bad ideas said that while creating t-shirts for the Y Combinator program they originally considered the phrase “If you can read this, I should be working” but decided to go with the phrase “Make something people want” in the end. Since reading this essay that idea has been stuck in my mind for a while. It played along nicely with what Richard Hamming had to say in his talk at the Bell Communications Research Colloquia Series which has been titled You and your research. Hamming says he asked his peers what is the most important area in your field and then asked if they were working in that area. If the person said no he would simply ask why not.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to check “make something people want” off of my list of things to do because i hope i’ll always be working on something useful.

(cross-posted)