“Armanis, or the Love of
Technology” by Bruno Latour is an excellent example. It’s describing the failure of the self guided transportation system intended for Paris. The most interesting perspective is written from the perspective of the train system itself.
Let there be more biographies of failures
101–110 of 155 posts
Re: Let there be more biographies of failures
#102"Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan."
-- John F. Kennedy
Re: Let there be more biographies of failures
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
I loved that show and think it finished rather than was cancelled. But many of the folks I recommended it to, didn’t like it. Various reasons provided but I remember stuff like “depressing” and “failure” coming up a lot.
I tried watching it, couldn't get past the first season because of the characters. I've dealt with enough asshole Steve Jobs wannabes and the 10x rockstar programmer types in real life that watching them on screen gives me PTSD.
Yeah, similarly pain for me too. But I think it was accurate based on my experience and I think showing the four broken, jerk people was really representative and accurate. Turning them into likable characters would be even more of a fantasy than it already was. I suppose there’s nice people somewhere, but I had the bad luck of not working with them.
Re: Let there be more biographies of failures
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
I loved that show and think it finished rather than was cancelled. But many of the folks I recommended it to, didn’t like it. Various reasons provided but I remember stuff like “depressing” and “failure” coming up a lot.
It just felt so contrived to me, above and beyond what is normal for a TV show. These 6ish people are responsible for pretty much every revolution and success in the tech sector? Yeah fuck that. It felt like tech-bro worship, completely ignoring the same folks everyone else always ignores who tend to be the ones putting in the uninteresting work that keeps those types able to make their successes. But I watched every…
> These 6ish people are responsible for pretty much every revolution and success in the tech sector?
But they weren’t. All their “revolutions” were me too products alongside compaq, aol, and yahoo. It seemed like how there were lots of almost-wases around those times. Just look at all the ibm compatible companies who all made similar stuff and didn’t make it.
Re: Let there be more biographies of failures
#105Henry Petroski has written several excellent essays and books about engineering failures, why it is inherent in engineering pursuits that there will be failures, why it is important to learn the right lessons from these failures, and why each new generation will forget past lessons. Start with: "To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design" (1985)
> and why each new generation will forget past lessons.
This is also a reason why open source is such a useful concept
Re: Let there be more biographies of failures
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you read these 13 stories of failed software products that I collected you'll see that they have quite a lot in common: https://successfulsoftware.net/2010/05/27/learning-lessons-f... Also, hanging out on forums for software entrepreneurs, I see people making the same standard mistakes again and again.
can you tell me some of them?
Off the top of my head:
Not doing market research.
Taking too long to release v1.
Not spending enough time on marketing.
Lifetime licenses.
Obsessing over piracy.
See also: https://successfulsoftware.net/2009/07/21/ten-mistakes-micro...
Re: Let there be more biographies of failures
#107“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Re: Let there be more biographies of failures
#108Amen! I've found that 9 times out of 10 successful people follow the same advice and believe the same things as unsuccessful people (at least they SAY they do). So it's really useful to look at people who failed yet followed the same advice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
I think the important bit is to pay attention to what the successful do differently from common sense advice, not the bits that everyone follows. For example, Elon Musk's housing choices when traveling, Steve Jobs' higher education, Tesla's approaches to thinking.
Maybe if you just imitate everyone's quirks you will become master of the world.
Re: Let there be more biographies of failures
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the important bit is to pay attention to what the successful do differently from common sense advice, not the bits that everyone follows. For example, Elon Musk's housing choices when traveling, Steve Jobs' higher education, Tesla's approaches to thinking.
Maybe if you just imitate everyone's quirks you will become master of the world.
I certainly think it's worth trying them. And I believe in trying anything three times before giving up.
I think the quirky information which you have to dig up is much more likely to be the "secret sauce" than the all-to-familiar stuff which almost everyone is doing.
Re: Let there be more biographies of failures
#110im reminded of this iconic (and fake) image
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/88/2d/84/882d84006a19f91c521b...
