Bruno Latour, Aramis, or the Love of Technology, PDF - Dss-edit.com

having each car say, 'Here's the problem, here's where I'm in trouble.' Wedidn't say so to the RATP, but we thought that was useless." [po 1 1]"You would have gone further if you'd been able to renegotiate the contract?""You have to see that there was this organizational abscess, I mean thisorganizational aspect. We could have held onto each function without degradingit, but by taking the bottom of the line every time to absorb, for example,Montpellier's 50 cars and only later moving to the Petite Ceinture's 600. Forexample, if we'd been able to move to 200-millisecond updating and leaveit at that, we could have had less sophisticated software, and that would haveallowed us to do Aramis; we'd have been downgrading, relaxing the constraints."Well, I could never get Pari at [his opposite number at the RATP] to agreeto that. 'We'll refer to the contract when you see us really go off the deep end;you're holding up a guard-rail, but while things are going along normally youforget that and we manage things with a certain amount of flexibility. '"But the RATP guys had the impression that we were constantly backslidingin relation to the obiectives." [no. 25]Matra 's M. Freque:"Let me show you something that will help you understand" [see Figure 18]."Of course it's a bit exaggerated, but actually things often go like that. Whydo something simple when you can do something complicated?"The RATP was always asking for something slightly extravagant. You startwith some simple doodad, easy as pie, and you end up overspecifying; youget something that says 'Mommy, Daddy, ' but it obviously costs more."Besides, yeah, this is really classic, there was always somebody who'dsay, 'We did that in Lille'; it was team culture. Habits count for something aswell." [no. 6]Yet another interpretation! It was almost perfected technologically,or at least it all could have been if the RATP hadn't insisted toorigidly on impossible constraints. Yet then what they would have perfectedwouldn't have been Aramis, but something else, an Ara-x! Theoperating agency says it's feasible but claims the manufacturer hasabandoned the baby. The manufacturer says a different Aramis was