Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One
press.stripe.com57 points by mitchbob 6 hours ago
57 points by mitchbob 6 hours ago
Stewart Brands article The Maintenance Race[0] was one of my favorite posts in 2022.
[0]: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-maintenance-race/
EDIT: discussion at that time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32196345
“In his journal [Crowhurst] would diligently make a list of projects that needed to be done, do a few of them half-heartedly, and then lose interest. Since he never got around to organizing his stowage, he had to ransack everywhere to find things.”
This hits close to home… I don’t think I should be a sailor.
Yes, this article was one of the best articles in the last few years. And to this day I think about it. It has that property of good writing that lingers with you way after you read it.
Can't wait to read the book!
I was fortunate to read a preprint of Brand's latest. It's magnificent.
How and why do things fail? What are the cultures that lead to long-lasting products?
The undercurrent here is that Brand is behind the 10,000 year clock and has a vested interest in making things last a long time.
This book is an exploration of the world of things, how they break, and how people fix them. It's a huge effort, and Part One is right. He's been posting further work on Twitter from Part Two.
He included some sword fighting manuals that I sent that we think are the earliest written instruction guide.
> The undercurrent here is that Brand is behind the 10,000 year clock and has a vested interest in making things last a long time.
What do you mean by this? I have no idea who Stewart Brand is, and I am wary of authors who advertise themselves by saying how many books they have written, because it makes me think they are fiction writers rather than people with real knowledge on the subject.
He's not in this to sell books. Stewart is investigating a way of life, and a means of keeping things working a long time. And he's documenting it thoroughly.
This is a topic I’ve been wanting a book on for a long time. We’ve done so much work to eliminate the need for maintenance for the masses through things like planned obsolescence, renting instead of owning, and appeasing the hedonic treadmill. I can’t help but feel through this we’ve lost a lot of collective skills in patience and ownership as a result.
I’m looking forward to reading this.
Sean Carroll interviews Stewart about this book on his latest podcast episode:
https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/01/19/341-...
I really enjoyed it. I'll probably get a copy of this. I loved the thermodynamics analogy in the start of the podcast, likening maintenance to the prevention of entropy, with all the energetic exchanges that entails. Though maintenance does take work, it's worth it. Stewart makes a compelling case for it.
Gotta maintain The Machines of Loving Grace.
Since when is Stripe a book publisher?
I guess 2018. I learned about them relatively recently and IMHO they're doing a pretty darn good job.