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James Burke Legend Connections 1 The Trigger Effect

Tim Callinan · 389.8K views · 2021-11-19 · 48:02

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Overview

The first episode of James Burke's Connections series, 'The Trigger Effect', explores how modern society depends on interlinked technological systems and how quickly it breaks down when they fail, starting with a power blackout.

On Hacker News

Recommended whenever outages and cascading failures come up, as a classic on interdependent systems.

Recommended by 4 HN people across 4 months · HN mentions 2022–2026

Topics

History of computingDocumentaries & storytellingPower grid, heating & buildings
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james burkeconnectionshistory of technologypower gridsystems failure

What people said

HocusLocus · 2026-05 · Strong recommendation

The "Trigger Effect" episode ( [VIDEO] ) that set off Connections:I was one of the finest hours ever produced for television. It influenced my family and I in the years to come. Hope for the best, while preparing for the worst. It begins at South Tower of the World Trade Center, and as Burke enters an express elevator (Car 6 or 7 if you must know) he says in effect, "Do I worry about ascending to the top in a steel box? Of course I don't! We take going up in the world like that for granted." When the elevator goes dark he says. "We expect this to happen sometimes so what do we do? We strike a light and look around in the dark for an emergency button to push and is we find one, we press it." In this discussion of single takes, note what the temperature of the butane lighter must have been by the time he finishes his speech. Ouch! Also interesting to note in the realm of happenstance: the airliner portrayed in trouble over darkened New York was flight 911.

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01100011 · 2024-07 · Recommendation

This might be a good time for folks to go back and watch the first episode of James Burke's Connections: The Trigger Effect [VIDEO] Interconnected systems can fail spectacularly in unforeseen ways. Strange that something so obvious is so often dismissed or overlooked.

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bamfly · 2023-07 · Recommendation

You may enjoy the first episode of James Burke's Connections ("The Trigger Effect"), if you've not seen it. [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Tim Callinan, played through YouTube.

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