3 ms·

In the same way Star Wars has incredible bits about light saber battling.

IgorPartola 7y ago
Not at all. The bit about how when you strip a bolt it becomes your whole project and how you then need to pause and think through all the options before you before proceeding I am sure saved countless hours and dollars to a lot of people. The bit about really understanding how the thing works before attempting to repair it is great. And the part about the grill assembly manual makes a lot of sense and is very real world applicable. It’s true that this book won’t teach you how to rebuild a carburetor or adjust valve clearances, but it will give you a good outlook on performing those tasks.
- BiteCode_dev 7y ago
  > The bit about how when you strip a bolt it becomes your whole project and how you then need to pause and think through all the options before you before proceeding I am sure saved countless hours and dollars to a lot of people. The bolt here is just used as an analogy for how to address problems in life, balance importance you give to micro vs macro, the beauty and danger that scales up and down in anything, etc. Sure, it's a smart one, actually useful if taken literally as well, because the writer is very talented. > The bit about really understanding how the thing works before attempting to repair it is great. Again, another analogy. The whole book is teaching you how to think. And then go beyond thinking, as an art of living. Every page is a personal, human lesson. You can stop at the mechanical aspect of it, but it is missing why this is a fantastic writing. It's giving profound advises using a simple, down to earth, vocabulary. I could have done so with any other gimmick. Just like star wars could have replaced light sabers with something else. It just became an iconic symbol because it's so obviously recognizable and easy to grab. But of course, they are also good because they chose such an symbology to make it easy to refer to. You know where you were in class, and the teachers analyzed a book and you though in your head, BS! ZAMM is an exception to that. It is, really, a conscious and deep work of teaching that goes several levels down.
  - IgorPartola 7y ago
    Yes they are all analogies and metaphors, I don’t dispute that. My point is that even so they are very applicable to the kind of problem solving you might do when actually maintaining a motorcycle. It didn’t teach me to fix stuck bolts, I learned that later. But everything I do with any kind of construction or maintenance is in fact influenced by the philosophy of this book. By contrast, I rarely think of Star Wars or Dune or Of Mice and Men when problem solving, especially problem solving that involves tools.

Not at all. The bit about how when you strip a bolt it becomes your whole project and how you then need to pause and think through all the options before you before proceeding I am sure saved countless hours and dollars to a lot of people. The bit about really understanding how the thing works before attempting to repair it is great. And the part about the grill assembly manual makes a lot of sense and is very real world applicable. It’s true that this book won’t teach you how to rebuild a carburetor or adjust valve clearances, but it will give you a good outlook on performing those tasks.

BiteCode_dev 7y ago
> The bit about how when you strip a bolt it becomes your whole project and how you then need to pause and think through all the options before you before proceeding I am sure saved countless hours and dollars to a lot of people. The bolt here is just used as an analogy for how to address problems in life, balance importance you give to micro vs macro, the beauty and danger that scales up and down in anything, etc. Sure, it's a smart one, actually useful if taken literally as well, because the writer is very talented. > The bit about really understanding how the thing works before attempting to repair it is great. Again, another analogy. The whole book is teaching you how to think. And then go beyond thinking, as an art of living. Every page is a personal, human lesson. You can stop at the mechanical aspect of it, but it is missing why this is a fantastic writing. It's giving profound advises using a simple, down to earth, vocabulary. I could have done so with any other gimmick. Just like star wars could have replaced light sabers with something else. It just became an iconic symbol because it's so obviously recognizable and easy to grab. But of course, they are also good because they chose such an symbology to make it easy to refer to. You know where you were in class, and the teachers analyzed a book and you though in your head, BS! ZAMM is an exception to that. It is, really, a conscious and deep work of teaching that goes several levels down.
- IgorPartola 7y ago
  Yes they are all analogies and metaphors, I don’t dispute that. My point is that even so they are very applicable to the kind of problem solving you might do when actually maintaining a motorcycle. It didn’t teach me to fix stuck bolts, I learned that later. But everything I do with any kind of construction or maintenance is in fact influenced by the philosophy of this book. By contrast, I rarely think of Star Wars or Dune or Of Mice and Men when problem solving, especially problem solving that involves tools.