Sign in Subscribe

chronicles

08
Aug
Friday Fun: The KPI Wildlife Reserve

Friday Fun: The KPI Wildlife Reserve

The Reserve boasted one of the richest concentrations of corporate wildlife ever documented. Decades of careful conservation had produced an ecosystem of extraordinary diversity, where every important metric enjoyed legal protection regardless of its relationship with the surrounding environment.
3 min read
06
Aug
The Humility of Reliable Systems

The Humility of Reliable Systems

Reality has never cared how confident the system felt before the lights went out.
8 min read
04
Aug
Monday Myth: Performance Comes from Power

Monday Myth: Performance Comes from Power

True Engineers rarely optimise machines because they admire elegance. They optimise economics.
4 min read
02
Aug
Friday Fun: The Committee That Replaced the Thermometer

Friday Fun: The Committee That Replaced the Thermometer

The first industrial revolution did not merely require bigger machines. It required machines that behaved predictably. Steam engines demanded repeatable boiler pressures. Steel mills demanded consistent furnace temperatures.
4 min read
30
Jul
Wednesday Reality :The Assembly Line Does not Care Who Worked Hardest

Wednesday Reality :The Assembly Line Does not Care Who Worked Hardest

Systems possess no mechanism for rewarding effort. They reveal only what successfully passes through them.
4 min read
28
Jul
Monday Myth: "Our Application Is Complex"

Monday Myth: "Our Application Is Complex"

Perhaps software never suffered from an unusual abundance of complexity. Perhaps it suffered from an unusual willingness to admire it.
6 min read
26
Jul
Friday Fun: The Corporate Weather Office

Friday Fun: The Corporate Weather Office

The Corporate Weather Office occupied the fourth floor of the Ministry because weather had, over time, acquired considerable strategic importance.
4 min read
23
Jul
Wednesday Reality: Control Has Mass

Wednesday Reality: Control Has Mass

Modern organisations rather than improving the architecture of work, increase the number of people watching it.
9 min read
21
Jul
Monday Myth: Standardisation Kills Innovation

Monday Myth: Standardisation Kills Innovation

Standardisation therefore functions less as a constraint than as infrastructure. Like roads, railways or electrical grids, it rarely attracts admiration once established because its greatest achievement lies in becoming invisible.
8 min read
19
Jul
Friday Fun: The Office Escape Room

Friday Fun: The Office Escape Room

Long before escape rooms became fashionable corporate team-building exercises, engineers, locksmiths and craftsmen had been designing mechanical puzzle boxes whose sole purpose was to challenge the human mind
3 min read