I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you….

I’d say that inexpensive failure is the key to a vibrant ecosystem, a
word often thrown around.

What does it cost Microsoft if somebody writes a Windows program that
fails in the market place? Thanks to their software developer programs,
the answer is next to nothing.

For the Internet, what did it cost to let YouTube experiment with the
potential market for watching other people lip sync songs in the
bedroom? Thanks to the clear open interfaces and platforms, again, next
to nothing.

I see the telcos struggling with this even now. The IMS standard is a
monument to complexity, and the net result is that it stifles innovation
through its tremendous cost of failure.

Regards,
Larry Lang

I just said that very thing to (my wife) Stevie yesterday. It’s absolutely right, no “relative” about it. Anyone who accomplishes great things knows this. Pop culture doesn’t, and NASA has been gutted spiritually and financially as a result. Too bad. Virtually all of the stuff we use for “high tech” came out of the 60’s space program, and it had many many many failures along the way. Thank God the press didn’t buzz around them like they do now, making the public believe that a failure is grounds for shutting NASA down. The flight crews are the tiplet of the iceberg, the legions of engineers and contractors are the “rest of the story”. The flight crews know they’re taking risks and are willing to do so. Too bad they aren’t highly respected for that willingness.