Tag: Stewart Brand

Universal advice from professional maintainers. RTFM!

August 2nd, 2023

More from Stewart Brand’s book in progress.

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.”
Brand, Stewart. Maintenance: Of Everything, Chapter 2 – Vehicles

I can’t help but thinking that the tech world version of RTFM is enrollment in the formal training and getting certified.
Stewart Brand’s paradox of maintenance

June 17th, 2023

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.

You can follow his progress here: https://books.worksinprogress.co/
Cities and hermit crabs – Teju Cole in conversation with Aleksandar Hemon

June 22nd, 2022

Cities, on the other hand, are marked with specific architecture from specific dates, and this architecture, built by long-vanished others for their own uses, is the shell that we, like hermit crabs, climb into.
Cole, Teju. Known and Strange Things. A Conversation with Aleksandar Hemon, pg 86.

I’ve never read Steward Brand‘s book “How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built“, but it’s all I could think of after reading this passage.

Tag: Stewart Brand

Universal advice from professional maintainers. RTFM!

Stewart Brand’s paradox of maintenance

Cities and hermit crabs – Teju Cole in conversation with Aleksandar Hemon