Macreadys Talk

PaulMacready?, the project manager for the GossamerCondor?, the airplane that won the prize for human powered flight, gave a talk at the SecondVancouverOopsla?. Please add snippets from it and how they relate to your work.

They drew drawings of the plane only after they had won the prize. "We got paid for flying a figure eight, not drawing blueprints." I get paid for computing certain results and aiding certain human tasks. TheSourceCodeIsTheDesign, etc.

"We acted like every problem could be solved with the simplest possible solution. The time we saved on the 98% of the problems that actually were solved allowed us to concentrate incredible resources on the other 2%." DoTheSimplestThingThatCouldPossiblyWork.

He showed a picture of a crashed airplane. Whenever a part broke, they made that part stronger. The parts that didn't break, they made those parts lighter. DoTheSimplestThingThatCouldPossiblyWork and RefactorMercilessly.

Does anyone know if this is available either on tape or transcript? AlistairCockburn

The video can be purchaced from University Video Communications -- see http://www.uvc.com/videos/oo98MacCready.video.html

Notice that the "Gossamer Condor" is a one-off, special-purpose, proof-of-concept experimental aircraft, and that its prize winning flight was made by a champion athlete.