Everyone should read the above. Cringely had so many stories where he seemed to be part of, or present to witness, significant events in the computer industry - after a while you become suspicious that one person could really do/see all these things. Like he was a 'Forrest Gump' of technology.

This absolutely needs to be read by anyone here speaking of this man like some kind of tech god

Unfortunate, but an excellent moral story about how lies can snowball quickly.

So 12 hours later (or so), there's still no confirmation that he actually died.

Makes me wonder if he's actually dead...

I really liked the guy, and his speculations about IBM.

But it's wild to get involved in a Kickstarter involving the star of Plane Crazy. When I watched Kickstarters fail and the people who started them grow increasingly unstable, I would always think about Plane Crazy.

Too bad that it didn't get a lot of distribution; there's a link on this HN thread pointing to a copy on youtube that was taped off PBS in Chicago, and I literally saw it on WTTW in Chicago. I don't know where it could really be marketed - it might be great to reedit it into a feature.

But its theme is that Cringely would bite off more than he can chew during what one might not recognize as a mania. You would see this pattern in almost everything he did, unless he was lucky enough to get it right on the first try.

1) he would make a lot of promises based on a dream of accomplishing something that no one had ever done before,

2) experts he would consult would tell him that they didn't think it was possible, but that they'd be happy to be surprised,

3) as the problems would pile up and he would gradually come to the realization that he was going to fail, he would first look at those problems as interesting challenges,

4) improvise inadequate solutions to show he could meet those challenges,

5) ignore the experts who criticize those inadequate solutions, and that tell him that these were the problems that made them think this was impossible in the first place,

6) mock and attack the experts who criticized his inadequate solutions (likely as stuck in the past or jealous of a non-expert invading their turf),

7) then start to conceal new and compounding problems,

8) then fully and knowingly lie about the problems (likely justified to himself as simply buying time for one fix he's obsessing upon to work),

9) then start to blame people who don't believe those lies for inadequately supporting him (he just needs a little bit more time),

10) then attack those people - his investors, friends and family (I just need another day or two!),

11) then attack himself for being low enough to attack the people who believe in him and love him,

12) then consider suicide.

Have there been any "Plane Crazy"-style documentaries about any of the spectacular Kickstarter failures?

The Jason Arday of technology columnists.

What’s that job role titled? I’m looking for work and that seems like something I could be okay at, and likely in demand enough to offer realistic prospects. Thanks in advance.

[dead]

Previously: https://www.cringely.com/2013/04/07/cringely-comes-back-from...

Aah! Don't make me worried about Langford!

He appears to be fine, and just published Ansible® 471: https://news.ansible.uk/a471.html

To quote Fran Lebowtiz "A great audience is more important for the creation of great art than great artists are"... We've lost a great, ironic, self aware informed commentariat because a literate, emotionally stable audience for long form content has shrunk. Which means the work isn't there (or at least isn't distributed beyond a few substacks), to perpetuate and expand that audience.

I see the same effect all the time in fiction. Innovative challenging books don't get published (or even picked up by agents), because the publishing industry is run by the kind of people who are frightened and offended by such books. Which means the audience for those books become only those lucky enough to be exposed to older, denser, more innovative fiction - which invariably shrinks.

You've had this fragmentation of attention. Many of the main computer magazines had essentially destination columnists whether writing under their own name or a pseudonym--which periodically passed to a new writer (which in Cringely's case was a matter of some controversy at one point). The latter were often written in a sort of gossipy style intended to make the reader feel that they had an inside view of a company or an area of technology.

It was a different time.