The Art of Failure 54
H316 writes "On the BBC web site, I saw an article on an art exhibit about the art of failure. The exhibit is entitled "Dot-Gone." Here is a great example of why the net still has so many issues; this is an interesting story, but we get friggin' thumbnail sized pictures of the artworks. And only a couple of them at that. There's some clever stuff there, but a dozen hi-res photos would have made me extremely happy. That said, the story is really bandwagony (its as trendy today to rip on dot coms as it was 1.5 years ago to write about Linux, of course I'm biased ;). I'd actually like to see this show tho, some of the works sound interesting. Woulda been nice if they showed them to us. I guess I could reconstruct the business card one using all the business cards I keep in a fishbowl saved from tradeshows.
In related news (Score:1)
All Slackware core team members except Pat V. have been laid off
Posted Monday, April 16, 2001 by keskoy
Chris Lumens (Slackware Linux core team member) explained to me in IRC what happened:
Chris "David, Logan, and I were laid off from BSDi. Slackware will continue to be maintained. Right now, we can't say too much about what's going on due to the usual corporate hejaz, but hopefully we will be able to explain later. For now, keep on supporting Slackware and we'll continue to work on it"
David Cantrell also commented "all four of us are still Slackware core team members"
Show Review of "Dot Gone" (Score:2)
Re:I'm in SF but won't go see this (Score:1)
That's not exactly the difference. The difference is many more startups got funding on the public market. As a result average people felt the losses when these companies failed. It's usually venture capitalists and wealthy individuals who take the highest risk, by the time a company got around to an IPO it was fairly stable and at least profitable. Companies used to IPO because they needed cash to expand, not to survive.
NPR Story from a while ago (Score:1)
Theres even a real audio link (although it didn't want to play for me). it also links to wearefamous.com [wearefamous.com], the artists' site
More details... (Score:2)
See the gallery [lairoftheminotaur.org] and the (bay area) artists [wearefamous.com] themselves. ('ware Flash!)
Actually, this was all in The Standard [thestandard.com] a couple of months ago...
I'm cheering (Score:3)
Re:I'm cheering (Score:5)
I switched jobs in February and it took a whole 2 days to find a job. That's absolutely outrageous, and is a sign of how terribly rough things are right now.
Re:I'm in SF but won't go see this (me neither) (Score:2)
I moved here in August 2000 to take on a sys admin job. It was still pretty bustling then.
Every where I looked I thought I was looking at Armani models and shit. Stupid me, I'm from out of town, my gear was shitty, and everyone thought I was in some low position because I wasn't "director of pig fuck".
8 mos. later, and director of pig fuck has his $500 for 500 business cards pressed on your typical whiny San Francisco "I'm intellectual b/c I'm from San Francisco" pseudo-art exhibit where where the funny hair dyes stand out b/c the pussies are too scared to get tatoos, piercings and look really counter-culture.
8 mos. later, and I have a job. I didn't know sys admins had it so good. We're the first ones hired (me) and the the last ones fired (also will be me). So all you marketing, purchaser, HR, bla bla blas from Berkeley, Stanford, and *worse* you blue blood immigrants from Boston, you'll see me on my beat down motorcycle with messenger bag, a laptop, conspicuous tatoos, piercings and no degree, and I'll be seeing y'all at the unemployment line. Wave when you see me!
*I'm bitter because these cheesy posers wanted to be rock stars by starting an internet version of an ice cream truck, and they really thought they were rock stars*
"failed utterly"? (Score:1)
I wouldn't call it a total failure - as in all spheres of life, the things that people really care about on the Internet will remain, and all else will pass away. ebusiness (I feel dirty just typing it) is here to stay, no matter how many individual companies went belly-up.
The best analysis I've seen so far (further up the page by now) is that there were no risks in failing since you're using somebody else's money, so everybody went for it even if they didn't have a good plan. Ultimately this just managed to blow off a lot of investors' cash on some very fancy marketing and perks. It was fun while it lasted, and it proves once and for all that you can't trust Wall Street to be "rational investors" all the time.
Re:"failed utterly"? (Score:1)
Completely understandable, it's too bad if the article misrepresented things somewhat. I'm just a little defensive about the current media perception that the dot-com era was a total failure - sometimes I wonder if it was technology correspondents who lost the most when the bubble burst, and so now they're bitter about everything online. I think the general population uses the 'net for things that work for them (email, web, and IM mostly), and so the failure of things that don't work for them (boo.com) shouldn't count against the overall increase in 'net usage and importance in our lives.
Good luck with your show, sorry I'm from out of town and won't get a chance to see it.
Re:The sad fate of images... (Score:1)
Yes, but not for the reasons that you think.
If we are talking utilitarian images (e.g. the picture of the toaster that the guys want to sell you), then a high-res 1800x1600 image *is* overkill. Even leaving aside the poor modem users, not many people like to scroll around to see the complete image and I doubt that there are ten people in the world who are buying toasters from a machine with a better-than-1800x1600 desktop resolution.
If we are talking art (including photos, etc.) then the major problem is color rendition on the user's monitor (mostly a gamma problem, but more than that). The rude reality is that you cannot put an image on the web and make sure it appears on the people's monitors the way you want it to. Talk to professional photographers who use digital, e.g. to submit proofs to clients. They've been banging their head on this particular wall for some time now.
I guess, as usual, the intended use should determine the quality/size of the image.
Kaa
Blame the media, I do (Score:1)
The "high tech life style" portrayed in popular culture has become something to strive for. The reality is that it does not exist. It is the analogue of young girls depressed and sullen that what they see in the mirror does not match the airbrushed cover of Vogue.
Now that there has been a bust in the industry one can almost feel the sigh of relief from those who chose to persue an education, or a career as opposed to pie in the sky greed.
mm.m. can you taste the pretention? (Score:1)
i can!
tastes like
...dave
demotivator (Score:1)
as the fine demotivator goes:
"Failure--when your best just isn't good enough"
Contrast this with... (Score:1)
Oops! I thought... (Score:2)
Re:Why I still love the internet (Score:1)
poster is canadian.
I did something like that once... (Score:1)
Not an original idea, but definitely one with a rich pool to draw from right now.
I wish I'd started a failed dot.com, just so I'd have something to contribute when the conversation started turning inevitably towards the topic.
Not always... -Flint, MI (Score:3)
Although there is some truth to that statement; sometimes the loss of a big employer kills the town too. When the Big 3 and AC Delco closed plants in Flint, MI the city went into a downward spiral of which it has not recovered. Many other factors play a role in the analogy that you are making. I just hope you are right that this will lead to bigger and better things!
Don't discriminate against failed dotcoms (Score:3)
Oh wait - it is.
Tell me what makes you so afraid
Of all those people you say you hate
VERY INTERESTING (Score:1)
Re:VERY INTERESTING (Score:1)
so, in essence, here is what he believes: copyrights are bad, but not for him or his cause. If you beleve something is wrong, like copyrights, utilizing them is a bit hypocritical.
Sounds familiar...like what the RIAA is doing, but most people are to "wowed" by his involvement in the FSF movement.
Hall o' Shame (Score:1)
I'm in SF but won't go see this (Score:5)
Why? Businesses come and go all the time. Most startups fail. It has always been this way. The only difference is that many [marchfirst.com] more [alladvantage.com] dumb [kozmo.com] startups [pets.com] got funding [idealab.com] (and huge PR) in 1999-2000, and now more of them are toast [fuckedcompany.com] now.
Here in SF everyone wants to dump on the dot-coms, because they brought too many of the "wrong" (smart, educated, young) people into a city that the locals think is exclusively theirs. Certainly many of the stupid startups were a waste of time, money, and office space. But you have to put up with a lot of failures to get the diamonds in the rough.
So while I think it's fun to make fun of the bad ideas, we shouldn't forget the good stuff. Think of the auto industry: 100s (maybe 1000s) of companies have failed between the invention of the auto and today, but autos got vastly more reliable by 1950 than they were in the 1920s - in no small part because of this innovation.
Tech is no different.
What were those people thinking? (Score:5)
I think Warren Buffett said it best in his annual report: [berkshirehathaway.com]
The fact is that a bubble market has allowed the creation of bubble companies, entities designed more with an eye to making money off investors rather than for them.
And people bought into this. So fools and their money were, in the classic style, parted.
Re:Not always... -Flint, MI (Score:1)
Based upon the original quote, I think this addresses the different outcome in the two scenarios. This would most likely be attributable to the industries, though. It's one thing to do a SW start-up... I'm assuming it takes a lot more effort to do an auto (or auto-related) start-up.
Failure Is good (Score:2)
"Fail faster to succeed sooner."
Screwing up is inevitable, but the sooner you do it, the faster you know which paths are unsuccessful. For example, Thomas Edison knew over 1,000 ways not to make a light bulb.
just a thought.
American ingenuity (Score:1)
Re:I'm in SF but won't go see this (Score:1)
Dot.Coms huh? (Score:5)
"We will sell 20 pound bags of dog food on the internet. That makes sense."
Now, I'm not some trendy dot-com basher. I've been trying to tell people this for 6 years. I'm sure most of slashdot is in the same boat, because it's obvious to anyone with half a clue. But I just want to know, once and for all, what were these people thinking?
The exhibit itself. (Score:1)
Re:Why I still love the internet (Score:1)
Oops, I thought Comandante Taco was from Holland, MI. Well, as far as I was concerned, Michigan was pretty much Canada, anyway, cept for all them rednecks like Ab-Norman Olson and his MM, eh?
--
Why I still love the internet (Score:2)
Yeah, lots of dot.gones, the commute's not so bad, but might be more related to Spring Break than cuts and closures. Still, the word was 8,500 going from Cisco, yet they still want to build some massive tech campus in Coyote Creek.
Puts me in mind of a spinner we used to have for an NT server for Notes. The server is:
Up | Down | Up | Down | Up | Down ...
Would have been nice if they had given the address, here's a link in The Standard [thestandard.com] along with some other amusing stuff.
Address is: 3316 26th, San Francisco, CA
www.lairoftheminotaur.org [lairoftheminotaur.org]
--
Re:Not always... -Flint, MI (Score:1)
Re:union bashing... (Score:1)
I don't want someone fighting for my job when labor costs are cheaper in another country. What about the poor Russians who will be enriched by new jobs in their devastated economy? If they want to move development elsewhere, it's not my concern...I'll find another job. Big deal. I'm fully aware I'm expendable...so is my employer, it's a two-way street. I can quit any day I want to and blow a big hole in their plans. Frankly, losing a job is more of an opportunity to get a better job than any kind of negative thing. Is having a job some kind of a right? I don't remember reading anything about it in the Constitution.
Fitting (Score:5)
Failure has always been en vouge in art (Score:1)
Failure is an art now? (Score:1)
And from this moment on, I hereby copyright all of my failure under the new simplyfyed copyright laws.
So bah.
And should this post be modded down -don't- I copyright that too.
IN FACT, ALL YOUT FAILURE IS BELONG TO ME.
Re:The sad fate of images... (Score:2)
The sad fate of images... (Score:4)
Hopefully, somebody out there in the hosting world will realise that the death of the VC funded dot com will require a reduction in hosting costs to survive...or the invention of clever pricing plans to allow us spacehogs that don't push much bandwidth to colocate with bandwidth eaters with no space requirements, e.g. the drudge report.
+2 Sympathetic (Score:2)
What I would like to know is, who will be the first to create an online "Hall of Fame(shame)" for the Internet.
Would be nice to reminisce about the failures that plagued the late 90's and early millenium. It could also provide a framework for newcomer businesses to reflect on some of the failures that plagued some of the dead.dot.com's, and how they can avoid going that route.
It's rather sad to see businesses go down, since it shows us that nothing is secure, nothing is given/free, and we shouldn't take anything for granted when dealing with the technology field.
Personally I also think its a huge wake up call to remind many, the Internet is not a neccessity no matter what arguments you care to give, life worked fine without it in the past, and life will continue to work without it, although it has made things better, its still not a fundamental need in life. (not yet at least)
who'd of thought? [antioffline.com]
cranium cracker (Score:2)
Maybe you may not think the ideas were so great, but others may have seen things from a different perspective (obviously which is why they invested).
Dot.com companies weren't limited to just San Fran, in fact many of the realty companies out here in New York City paid companies to leave so they could move in dot.com co's. In fact many districts including the meat market district (very trendy for models and glamourous types) started becoming something of a dot.com have for many companies, and many bitched about it.
Why should anyone bitch about whom moves where, as long as its in a positive effort. Such fickle minded idiots especially when these dot.com companies often paid the most money for their office space, and I'm sure their employees brought a substantial amount of money into the commnity via way of purchasing food for lunhc, gas, etc.
going out of business [antioffline.com]
Re:I'm in SF but won't go see this (Score:2)
Let me try to make a list, pickiest first:
What's the point of putting the cards on hooks? Paste those fuckers down. Dead things aren't going anywhere. Put the live ones on hooks, so you can move them to the dead board and paste them down. (Half-wit artists are my pet peeve; talk about people doomed to failure...the only artistic value here is in that irony).
"And of course no office would be complete without a water cooler, which is where everyone gathers to get the latest gossip." Huh? Who the fuck ever "gathers around the water cooler?" These are people who communicated with their peers via online communities. If they gathered around anything it was a foosball table. If they wanted water they dribbled it into their Mentor Graphics mugs from desktop water-crocks, or pushed the button for it on the free-coke machine. "Water cooler" is just a figure of speech, and an inept one at that. Concreting it as art is either lame or ignorant.
"I was laid off from this company which is rapidly downsizing. They are throwing people off the plane like human cargo, so they can stay afloat." Nice mixed metaphor, Zack. Performance art. Display the stupidity that led to the debacle. This part I liked. Too bad it wasn't supposed to be part of the show.
"Rather profound". Anyone who sees any of this saran wrap as "profound" probably thinks omphaloskepsis actually means studying your navel until it reveals the secrets of the universe.
Basically, what the article tells us is that San Francisco is filling up with idiot losers who are shell-shocked by the experience of living a negative possibility they should have considered before gambling their futures on it, and who will react in puerile ways to anyone who is empathizing with them if only by rubbing their faces in their failures. And the wannabe artists and art-crits who love them and don't want to work too hard at it. Sounds like an abusive codependent relationship. I hope they're happy together. I'm gonna go get a burger.
--Blair
Re:Fitting (Score:2)
Ten words. Nailed point.
Foo. And I wasted all my moderator points already this morning. Someone mod that one toward 5 for me.
--Blair
Re:Dot.Coms huh? (Score:1)
I agree with the idea that most business people are slightly out of touch with reality. It is there job to be. You are not hired to be the president of a corporation only to pronounce their product as useless and redundant. you say that it is 'revolutionary' and 'fundamentally will change the way business X is run'. they are hired as evangelists.
it is the investors job to evaluate and analyze the pronouncements of business people, and come to their own conclusions about the validity and potential about a company. that is where the failure occurred in the market in '99 (i leave it simplified... i'm not ignorant of the fact this was a complex phenomenon, but there is a time & place...)
so it has that fundamental advantage, but also - and you may dispute this - a web site can be interactive in a totally different manner than a catalogue, and in ways that are useful. as much as amazon is despise here, they demonstrate this remarkably well with the automated suggestion, wish lists, user 'suggest reading' pages, user reviews, etc...
now, has it been done right? maybe not too often. but the potential is there. maybe a guy driving a porsche boxter, with a $1500 suit, who doesn't even know SQL won't be able to exploit the possibility of online business, but some people willing to work hard will.
just my 2 cents...
Re:Not always... -Flint, MI (Score:1)
yeah, you can code c++, assembly, and script in perl - but you can't fix your carburetor i'm guessing...
i know i'm giving up karma for this, but i don't care. my girlfriend's mother works at delphi, and makes cooling systems for car air conditioners. my girlfriend works in public policy. i code. but at least i know you don't have to be able to program to be smart, motivated, or creative.
shame on you, for being insular and prejudiced against people for the field they work in.
still wrong. (Score:1)
has nothing to do with the quality of the people in the industry, thanks.
and i will guarantee that programmers/sysadmins/etc will be unionizing down the road as the demand for them decreases, pay goes down, and employer demands reach the point where they are unreasonable, as has happened in most skilled labor pools throughout history.
union bashing... (Score:1)
you are expendable, too. the only difference is that you won't have somebody fighting to keep your job when whomever is paying your bills decides to outsource all of their programming to India or Russia.
i can't believe that
if corporations treated workers better (ie stock options, better pay relative to management), then the need for and power base of unions would evaporate.
do some unions abuse their power? of course they do. are they harder to work with? yes. would they exist if there was a good relationship with management in all companies? no...
Just Lovely (Score:1)
Here this whole time I've been trying to sell paintings and drawings done the old way, and all I had to do was hang a bunch of multi-coloured business cards on some hooks on the wall. Peachy.
The dot-com world may have been forced to come to its senses, but apparently the modern art world is just as clueless as ever.
The Ard of Failure.. (Score:1)
Re:Failure Is good (Score:1)
Edison knew that light bulb filaments would work, but was looking for specific characteristics to enhance its economic viability. i.e. brightness, duration, vibration resistance, etc.
Intuitively, Edision bounded his search space in a way that was financially possible for him to explore and where success was reasonably forseeable.
You could say the dot-com's were doing this too, but it was being done on an industry wide scale more than a company scale.
I think successful (and lucky) dot-com companies were able to bound thier search scope, explore it with the finances they had aquired, and were lucky enough to actually find a workable solution.
Amazon is remarkably close to finding a workable solution for their niche, they just need to try 100 more filaments to get the characteristics it needs. ie. ways of attracting customers, ways of shipping products for the least price, etc.
Re:FT (Score:1)
Re:FT (Score:1)
Re:"failed utterly"? (Score:1)