MetaFilter posts tagged with failure

a coherent platform for the grand new party?

kliuless — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 05:01:55 -0800

Keeping America's Edge (via) While the prescriptions are stock conservative boilerplate, I found the diagnosis remarkably congruent with, say, David Simon, altho I have my (not so minor) quibbles that 1) the US faces an existential threat from "those who oppose our values" -- if anything, it's the other way around -- and that 2) he doesn't properly account for regulatory capture, i.e. for libertarianism to be "roughly true in practice" we need something approaching perfect competition and there is far from a level playing field, moreover, "the political system seems incapable of addressing large-scale objective problems." BONUS -America's broken colleges -Do liberals have it wrong on inequality? -Asteroid Deflection as a Public Good -Start-up Visas Can Jump-Start the Economy [1,2,3] -Reforms to help China maintain growth [1,2,3]

Two words: business school.

boo_radley — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:22:31 -0800

Why can't Americans make things?

Who knew you could find such a big fish in the middle of a desert?

Afroblanco — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:07:04 -0800

During a year-long gambling binge at the Caesars Palace and Rio casinos in 2007, Terrance Watanabe managed to lose nearly $127 million. The run is believed to be one of the biggest losing streaks by an individual in Las Vegas history.

This, my darling, is the Zybourne Clock.

Optimus Chyme — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:38:57 -0800

"For Dirk McLauren, Wedesnday January 19 2381 has begun very poorly." The Zybourne Clock was to be a hundred-hour long electro-punk-themed RPG made by members of the SA subforum BYOB. After only a few weeks, the project collapsed in drama and failure, leaving only hilarious snippets of text, original "artwork," and level designs. More effort and skill went into parodying The Zybourne Clock than into creating it.

Gentlemen, you can't fight here! This is the War Room!

DreamerFi — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:00:16 -0800

1995 Contractor Study Finds that U.S. Analysts Exaggerated Soviet Aggressiveness and Understated Moscow's Fears of a U.S. First Strike. During a 1972 command post exercise, leaders of the Kremlin listened to a briefing on the results of a hypothetical war with the United States. A U.S. attack would kill 80 million Soviet citizens and destroy 85 percent of the country's industrial capacity. According to the recollections of a Soviet general who was present, General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev "trembled" when he was asked to push a button, asking Soviet defense minister Grechko "this is definitely an exercise?" This story appears in a recently released two-volume study on Soviet Intentions, 1965-1985, prepared in 1995 by the Pentagon contractor BDM Corporation, and published today for the first time by the National Security Archive. Based on an extraordinarily revealing series of interviews with former senior Soviet defense officials--"unhappy Cold Warriors"--during the final days of the Soviet Union, the BDM study puts Soviet nuclear policy in a fresh light by highlighting Soviet leaders' recognition of the catastrophe of nuclear conflict, even while they supported preparations for fighting an unsurvivable war.

Would you like to buy a bank?

jourman2 — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:47:37 -0800

Failed bank takeovers by the FDIC continue to increase at an alarming rate in 2009 (7 this past thursday, 52 so far in 2009) Here's an interview with a bank CEO who bought a failed bank for some insider info into how the process of buying failed banks works (this is the bank he bought). Via calculated risk. Previously

The importance of being a failure

bjrn — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 02:41:56 -0800

The internet loves it when things go wrong, anything from photoshopping to cakes. And while your personal failure might turn out to provide enjoyment for others, Adam Savage tells about the importance and upsides of colossal failures at Maker Faire. Failure for your enjoyment: photoshopping, cakes, english, craft projects, tattoos, converted storefronts, "quotation" marks, absolutely everything and of course everything tagged fail on Metafilter.

Assume failure

camcgee — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 08:28:03 -0800

How designers fail — "During college at the University of Arizona in 1992, I learned with other design freshman that revisions were part of the discipline; if you cried at critique you were a wimp, and the computer was just a finishing tool. . . . But something has happened since I was a college student in 1992: students just don’t believe these things."

GOALISSI-no

doobiedoo — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 12:41:10 -0800

"Ready, aim ... fail, why setting goals can backfire."

"And maybe they’re hoping we’ll buy their bezzle."

orthogonality — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 11:25:28 -0800

The savings and loan’s decision not to settle the lawsuit made no economic sense for a solvent institution, but it made perfect sense if their principle objective was to maintain the false appearance of solvency for as long as possible. The savings and loan was undoubtedly inflating all of their assets, including my homely little lawsuit, to postpone the inevitable.
What reminded me of that incident from my late, unlamented law practice was the persistent failure of financial institutions to modify mortgages voluntarily. It makes perfect economic sense for a safe and sound institution to avoid the ruinous costs of foreclosure by agreeing to reduce the principal and monthly payment for homeowners who can pay a mortgage, but not the one they’ve got. But according to the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, fewer than ten percent of mortgage modifications in November reduced the principal. About half added late payments and penalties to the principal, and either increased monthly payments or added payments at the back end of the mortgage. If a borrower was in default already, what’s the chance the borrower can make a higher monthly payment?

Brad Miller, US Congressman for the Thirteenth District of North Carolina advances a possible motivation for the apparently illogical behavior of US banks.

She's not a brick house

klangklangston — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:06:24 -0800

Thomas Edison's Concrete Houses From 1902 to roughly 1917, Edison was in the concrete business, and concrete houses would be one of his biggest failures. Shown here and here as models, Edison promised that they would be the salvation of the slum-dweller, priced at $1000 each (a third the cost of a new home at the time). He even made concrete furniture. Many of the houses still stand on Ingersoll Terrace," Union, NJ.

IndyMac Bank seized by federal regulators

Asherah — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:25:52 -0800

The FDIC has taken control of IndyMac Bank This is being described as the second largest bank failure in US history. If you are a current customer with funds on deposit, here's what you need to do.

Mall, or nothing?

Afroblanco — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:10:18 -0800

We've discussed dead malls before. But did you know that the world's biggest mall is also its deadest?

It's always a race condition.

enn — Tue, 20 May 2008 07:55:47 -0800

When programmers kill. [pdf] In 1982, Atomic Energy Canada, Limited, introduced the now-infamous Therac-25, a solely software-driven successor to its earlier medical linear accelerators. Six patients received massive amounts of radiation, and three died, before AECL was compelled to supplement the (faulty) software-only error-checking with hardware interlocks to prevent overexposure. "Since the time of the incidents related in this paper, AECL Medical, a division of AECL, was privatized and is now called Theratronics International, Ltd. Currently, the primary business of AECL is the design and installation of nuclear reactors." More from the sci.engr.* FAQ on Failures, Wikipedia.

The Misery Circle

idiomatika — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 21:26:26 -0800

The Misery Circle An article about the remaining 13 also-rans in past US presidential elections.

The Year of Flops

Iridic — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:34:48 -0800

On Tuesday, A.V. Club critic Nathan Rabin's reassessment of the rabidly ambitious Perfume: The Story of a Murderer marked the culmination of his Year of Flops project, a reviewing marathon of 104 commercial and critical failures. Here's the index of the films, sorted into Elizabethtown-derived categories of good but luckless movies, ordinary losers, and disasters of mythic proportions. For a bit of context, clips from some of the films in question: The Apple Batman and Robin The Wicker Man The Island of Dr. Moreau Under the Cherry Moon Billy Jack Goes to Washington Freddy Got Fingered (Not safe for work) Howard the Duck (Not safe for ducks) The Jazz Singer Toys Pennies From Heaven Return to Oz Cruising Cool World North

I'm a funky man, I got funky bones, I'm a funky man, my name is Dee Dee Ramone!

Afroblanco — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 11:20:56 -0800

In the 1980s, some artists successfully managed the transition from punk rock to rap. Others, not so much.

Hartford Civic Center Collapse

eye of newt — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 07:43:47 -0800

It could have been the greatest disaster in US history. On January 18, 1978, 30 years ago today, the 1400 ton 2 1/2 acre roof of the Hartford Civic Center, covered by a blanket of snow and ice, suddenly and completely collapsed, damaging almost all of the seats underneath. Just four hours earlier there was a basketball game packed with 5000 fans. Had it collapsed then, many, if not most, of the fans and players could have died. The roof was designed with help from some of the best civil engineering consultants, universities, and professors in the industry and had a special computer analyzed 'space frame' design--meant to equally balance the load so that lighter and cheaper material could be used. (Three days later, the space-frame roof of the Long Island University C.W. Post Dome Auditorium (pdf) collapsed "like a giant cracked eggshell".) Lessons learned.

Patton Oswalt Eats At KFC

jonson — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 14:26:43 -0800

Comedian Patton Oswalt has gotten a lot of mileage out of KFC's Famous Bowls ("a failure pile in a sadness bowl."); after years of mockery, he finally tries one for himself, and writes about the experience.

Bannerman's Arsenal Photoessay

jonson — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 19:17:43 -0800

Excellent post over at BLDBLOG on the history of Bannerman's Arsenal, a ruined island castle in the middle of the Hudson river, created by a war profiteer who was at one time the world's largest arms dealer. Bonus points for the amazing accompanying photos by Shaun O'Boyle, whose site Modern Ruins has been featured on the blue previously.

ZOMBIE BOOB TUBE TELEVISION

Sticherbeast — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 08:43:16 -0800

They claimed they would destroy all television with their business. $100 million and one cast member of First Kid later, all they had were massive amounts of failure, tremendous parties with Bryan Singer, and many, many, many allegations of sexual molestation. Now they hide in the Spanish Riviera and hire Chinese sweatshop workers to mine for World of Warcraft items. Check as well the original 2000 LA Times expose on the company, to say nothing of the "gay pedophile version of Silver Spoons" which remains their finest artistic achievement. via boingboing I also thank who I assume is MeFi's Own meehawl's link to this summary of the events. (NSFW)

Things I Have Failed To Masturbate To

jonson — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 19:03:44 -0800

Things I Have Failed To Masturbate To. Via.

Fate: 1 Internets: 0

zarq — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 17:03:43 -0800

Newsfilter: 30,000 customers in the San Francisco area lost power today at about 1:50pm PDT, in a series of power failures which knocked out a major datacenter hub: 365 Main. The hub controls servers for many social media sites, including Technorati, Netflix, Yelp, Craigslist and all Six Apart properties, including TypePad, LiveJournal and Vox. (6A's twitter stream has updates.) More here and here. Amusingly enough, 365 Main tempted fate and released a press release today patting themselves on the back for "two years of 100-percent uptime".

So, anyone "Think Doom" yet?

metasonix — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 10:06:37 -0800

Remember this? While randomly reading some assorted Digg posts, I saw someone mention the old Toshiba Liberato laptop. On doing a GIS search, up came a link to the "Apple Doomsday Clock". It just floors me that this anonymous anti-Apple blog (which even predates the word "blog"), is still online. It dates from the period when Jobs retook the CEO chair, and started turning the failing company around--the last posting was in June, 1999. Perhaps it should be treated as a historical site, and preserved for the future amusement of Mac users?

Iran in Iraq?

whozyerdaddy — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 20:38:43 -0800

How to use MS PowerPoint to exploit the U.S. Oh, the humanity...