The universal advice from professional maintainers to every impatient equipment misuser is an expletive: “Read The Fucking Manual!”
By which they mean: Part of taking proper ownership of something is to study its manual first. Owner’s manuals, along with offering a good introduction to the thing owned, are usually informative on preventive maintenance, and most provide a trouble-shooting section for simple fixes. If you take the thing to a professional for what turns out to be something minor that is thoroughly covered in the manual, they may well charge you extra for being obtuse and annoying. If you ask online for a solution, you’ll get the acronym version: “RTFM!” —typically used, says Wikipedia, “to reply to a basic question where the answer is easily found in the documentation, user guide, owner’s manual, online help, internet forum, software documentation, or Frequently Asked Questions.”
First Steven Spielberg, who is, if you make movies, if you direct movies, this is somebody who can help you. You look to his movie for solutions. He usually found a way to do it right. He’s one of my favorites.
To perfect the art of becoming such a reliable person, Franklin wrote out a “Plan for Future Conduct” during his eleven-week voyage back to Philadelphia. It would be the first of many personal credos that laid out pragmatic rules for success and made him the patron saint of self-improvement guides. He lamented that because he had never outlined a design for how he should conduct himself, his life so far had been somewhat confused. “Let me, therefore, make some resolutions, and some form of action, that, henceforth, I may live in all respects like a rational creature,” There were four rules:
It is necessary for me to be extremely frugal for some time, till I have paid what I owe.
To endeavor to speak truth in every instance; to give nobody expectations that are not likely to be answered, but aim at sincerity in every word and action–the most amiable excellence in a rational being.
To apply myself industriously to whatever business I take in hand, and not divert my mind from my business by any foolish project of suddenly growing rich; for industry and patience are the surest means of plenty.
I resolve to speak ill of no man whatever.
Happy Fourth of July!
If you were to write your own Plan for Future Conduct what would it be?
But the steam car is now again on its way. The engine will probably be hermetically sealed, requiring no lubrication, no makeup water. Its condenser will operate with a vacuum. It will use diesel oil as fuel, and will cause very little pollution. It will be quiet, flexible, powerful. It will get off from a cold start in 30 seconds. It will contain so little water that the danger of explosion will be made negligible. It will have a fire, in a furnace instead of inside cylinders, but this will be so shielded, in the manner of a miner’s lamp, that it will not present a fire hazard in the garage. The engine itself will be so light that one mechanic can pick it up in his arms. It will last for years without attention. When in full production, it will be cheaper to build, and to operate, than present cars. The steam car will not be built by the present automobile industry unless some unit of that industry suddenly sees a great light, or public pressure or foreign imports force the decision, or government orders subsidize a new unit in the industry. It will have competition, as I will discuss later. But in fact, if I were disinterested, and had to bet, I might bet on steam.
I’m surprised Vannevar didn’t bring the steam car to market himself. He speaks of its components with such clarity. It’s like he’s reading off the cad files.
I wonder why the steam car idea never persisted? Why were battery powered cars realized instead? Will the steam car idea revive if the demand for batteries increases?
Bush, Vannevar. Pieces of the Action. San Francisco: Stripe Press, 2022. (see pgs. 229-230)
The asceticism of intellectual life is related to what we might call the asceticism of life in general: the cancer may or may not respond to treatment; a woodworker or an engineer must accept the limitations of the materials, regardless of the grand vision he or she began with; there are some stains that just will not come out, no matter how important the garment is; the office can hire and fire as much as it likes, but in the end only the people who work there can accomplish its tasks. The encounter with a given reality, and the resultant crushing of our desires and hopes, is an essential part of being a human being. Every mode of learning is a school of hard knocks.
What you also need to do is keep working on your judgment. Keep working on your judgment. That means—and this is something you do, but I’m not sure how many writers actually do it as rigorously as they should—that you have to read a lot. There’s no substitute for that. You have to read a lot. You have to read it with a critical mind. When you read a great piece, reverse engineer it. Read it again with that specific eyewhere you’re looking at the craft.
When you read a piece by someone you like but this particular piece hasn’t worked, do the same thing.Read it with a critical eye. Figure out why didn’t it work this time. What went wrong? Why did it feel off? You have to hone the reader in yourself, which will automatically make your judgment better, which will automatically lift your ability with it because then you’ll have to work that much harder to please the critic in you.
Tim Hunkin is a professional tinkerer. His YouTube videos series The Secret Life of Components are excellent primers to the hidden lives of machines – their components.
A few notes on chains:
For us engineering noobs, the chain is associated with the bicycle. But oh it’s so much more. Tim Hunkin demonstrates the variety of their uses. Old fashioned arcades. Pulleys. And even a giant metal clock.
Belleville washers are “dished” spring washers. They look a bit like Satellite dishes. These help with torque.
The advent of the “Bush” chain was revolutionary. Bush chains are the modern chain. Their pins are able to slot all the way through the bush. This allows the chain handle greater loads.
They were invented by Hans Renold who founded the Renold Chain Company in 1880. The Renold Chain Company is still in operation.
In an age when AI can write songs and poems for you, the human edge will come not in what we generate, but in what we save, what we collect, and how we arrange the data. We find this idea in Walter Benjamin, who praises the collector as one who redeems objects, by bringing them into constellation with one another. We find it in the work of Mallarmé, for whom chance is the great anthologist. We find it in Nietzsche’s revisionist philosophy of history, according to which the task of the historian is less to remember the past as it was than to use it, recontextualize it. We find it in the art of Joseph Cornell, for whom art is fundamentally arrangement.
Maintenance is absolutely necessary and maintenance is optional. It it easy to put off, and yet it has to be done. Defer now, regret later.
Neglect kills.
What to do?
Here’s a suggestion: Soften the paradox and the misbehavior it encourages by expanding the term “maintenance” beyond referring only to preventive maintenance to stave off the trauma of repair–brushing the damn teeth, etc. Let “maintenance” mean the whole grand process of keeping a thing going. In that perspective, occasional repair is part of the process. Close monitoring is part of the process. Changing the oil is part of the process. Eventually replacing the thing is part of the process.
This from Stewart’s upcoming book Maintenance: Of Everything. Stewart is taking a brave approach to draft this book. He’s using Books in Progress, a public drafting tool where he collaborates with readers draft by draft.
Innovation gets all the love. Maintence is overlooked. Even in terms of status, innovators are celebrated. Maintainers are hidden. This book seeks to change that.
Floodlights and Goalposts 