

Why things fail - sbierwagen
http://www.wired.com/design/2012/10/ff-why-products-fail/all/

======
nnq
This just reminded me again how different software is from any physical world
artifact... It's mind boggling how for lots of software the cost of failure
can be reduced to almost ZERO by having the faulty component
restart/reload/reboot or just pushing an automatic upgrade to millions of
customers that didn't even knew they had a huge security hole...

And the ugly part is realizing how this "almost zero" cost of failure makes
people behave:

1\. we release software with security whole upon security whole to customers
(think Oracle, Ms, Apple... and probably everybody else too...), knowing the
fix will only be one upgrade away anyway, or

2\. we just code ugly hacks that "just restart the goddam service" when it
fails to respond or fails a sanity check, but leave the app otherwise running
and just dump everything to a log that nobody will ever care about until
performance really starts to degrade, or even then

3\. just throw more hardware at the problem and keep restarting stuff that
leaks memory or starts to fail some empirical sanity checks

...on the other hand I wished the plane I flew in could just
restart/reload/reboot after a failure before it smashed into the ground :)
...so maybe reducing the costs of failure and caring less about it is the way
to go.

\-- EDIT: realized that the plane/software analogy leaks badly: if the plane I
was in were the software, then I would be the data that get corrupted when it
fails :|

~~~
mrich
In comparison to relatively simple mechanical devices it is also mindboggling
in how many more ways software can fail.

\- failures from the underlying hardware \- out of memory may occur in many
places \- handle each corner case that may be reachable correctly \-
concurrency \- malicous user input \- running the program on future hardware

~~~
nnq
I don't thin "physical" devices have fewer points of failure than software...
it's just that our intuition is used to lumping thinks together (like zillions
of types of cracks are all "just cracks" unless you're a specialist in the
field...), maybe we have less well formed intuitions about software failure.

...but do you really think an analog device doesn't have MUCH MORE ways in
which it can fail than a piece of software? ...I mean, just think that
software has a "limited" number of states it can be in ...whereas for a "lump
of atoms" you need an overly simplified model just to start counting some sort
of states for the smallest components

------
andrewcooke
great article; thanks for posting.

vextec's site is here - <http://www.vextec.com/> \- and the patents for what i
guess are the core technology are here - <http://www.vextec.com/our-
technology/patents>

from reading the first article it seems that they extend finite element
analysis down to the level of crystals (they say "microstructure based")
(which is what you'd guess from the wired article). there's more detail
related to particular models (crack nucleation and growth) that i don't
completely get - i suppose those are different approximations used in the
models (and where the hard science is). and then they seem to do monte-carlo
on top of that.

------
lylemckeany
As I read this, the conspiracy theorist in me keeps thinking that Ford built
Building 4 to optimize failure rates so they occur immediately after the
warranty is up so they can cash in on service visits afterwards.

~~~
forensic
All modern corporations do this. It's called planned obsolescence and it is
NOT a conspiracy theory. It's a well established standard operating practice
for the majority of companies with manufactured, mass marketed goods.

Planned obsolescence occurs when barriers to entry are so high that the
remaining players in the market, with a wink and a nod, form a subtle cartel.
These cloak and dagger cartels of course raise prices, but they also increase
failure rates to extract rent.

This is the dark side of capitalism and what happens when capital concentrates
in the hands of a small plutocracy. The health of capitalism is completely
dependent on decentralized wealth. As soon as wealth starts to concentrate,
oligopolies and cartels form and they put a brake on innovation in favor of
rent seeking.

There's a documentary on this called "The Lightbulb Conspiracy" which is worth
watching.

~~~
kiba
The flip side of reliability is less innovation and less of other qualities
such as fuel efficiency and so forth.

So, it's not a dark side, because corporations are economizing in accordance
to a variety of factors.

~~~
forensic
> because corporations are economizing in accordance to a variety of factors.

Except, they're not. Planned obsolescence is not about economizing for other
factors, it is about rent seeking. You seem to be dismissing the findings of
this research without even understanding it. The entire point is that this
research has demonstrated that the planned obsolescence in question is has to
do with cartel formation and rent seeking rather than striving for a
competitive edge in a competitive market. This rent seeking only happens in
non-competitive, oligopolistic or monopolistic markets.

Cartel formation and operation is a well understood economic phenomenon. You
seem to be doubting it based on some kind of faith in the free market, some
kind of faith in the infallibility of markets. Adam Smith would have strong
words against this kind of naive market-worship.

------
jacques_chester
For those of you who are members of the IEEE, you might be interested in
joining the Reliability Society. They publish journals in this area.

They also cover software reliability; particularly security and privacy.

<http://rs.ieee.org/>

