Adam Greenfield4d ago

OK, it’s, admittedly, gorgeously produced. And I’m willing to give Stewart some considerable benefit of the doubt, given how primordially foundational his work has been for so much of who and what I am.

But opening it to see an ESR quote, in this day and age, feels greasy and retrograde and gross – not quite as bad as getting some DHH on you, but not far off, either. And it gets worse: I wouldn’t have bought the book in the first place had I known Stewart devotes an entire (brief) section to the design “of” Elon Musk, as if Musk had ever designed anything more elaborate than a stealthy excursion to a Black Sea hair-transplant clinic. That bit is all-but-disqualifying in itself, and tends to make me ashamed to have the book on my shelves.

The deeper issue, though, is Stewart’s narrow definition of “maintenance.” The book feels like it’s sidestepped a whole generation of discourse on the topic, to its detriment. I’ll let you know what I wind up concluding.

Show threadAdam Greenfield3d ago
(Exploring the particular irony of lauding Musk’s ostensible design genius, in an era when we know his insistence on flush, electronically-actuated handles on Teslas has contributed to the deaths by incineration of multiple victims, is left as an exercise for the reader.)
Show threadAdam Greenfield3d ago

The infuriating thing about this book is that when it’s good, and on the things it’s good on, it is very good indeed, and lots of fun besides.

It is disqualified completely, however, by its thorough, fatal lack of attention to those inveterate maintainers known as “women,” acknowledged in its pages only on the dedication page (and even then in a way that isn’t anywhere near as charming as Brand presumably intends).

Show threadDeb Chachra
@adamgreenfield I haven't read it yet, but that's disappointing to hear, if sadly familiar -- even off the top of my head, I can think of several otherwise excellent books that undermine themselves by not seriously engaging with gender issues.
Apr 6 at 6:36pmWeb
Show threadAdam Greenfield1d ago
@debcha My sense is that he’s surrounded himself with a tight, exclusively male knot of colleagues of many decades’ standing – G Dyson, B Eno, K Kelly – whose rather groupthinky take on what’s germane circumscribes his worldview, and whose banalities he therefore accords far too much weight to. And that has the effect of squeezing out voices and perspectives that knot cannot perceive, recognize and parse. The book is much the poorer for it.
Show threadDawn Ahukanna1d ago
@adamgreenfield @debcha I was captured by the endurance boat race story and don’t understand how Tesla can be included in the same book about maintenance. It should be called “is it functional and fit for purpose?”.
Show threadAdam Greenfield1d ago
@dahukanna @debcha That was far and away the best material in the book – far more valuable to me than another retelling of the tired Kalashnikov v. Stoner story, or a long bit that could have been boiled down to “sometimes I search YouTube for repair instructions.”
Show threadAdam Greenfield1d ago
@dahukanna @debcha The table of types of corrosion was admittedly pretty neat, though. : . )