Better than 99% uptime
Dec. 4th, 2005 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zdashamberMany months ago I was thinking about a PCR that didn't work (as the lab manager says with gleeful blackness, "That's Science!"). I charge all time and materials costs back to the labs that they're for, and I was thinking about how though some mistake I'd wasted a whole bunch of PI money. But then it ocurred to me, think of all the thousands of PCRs I've done that have worked... Data discovered seemingly effortlessly.
And that got me to thinking about how we humans tend to operate at about 99%. Nearly everything we do, we do well. There are so many opportunities to screw things up that we don't take. We're the descendents of millions of humans who didn't fuck up.
I mean, think of all the pedestrians you haven't squished with your car. Think of all the people you've met in your life who will still talk to you. Every day you drive down the road and avoid killing people; every day you manage not to nuke the earth between you and someone else.
Which is another reason, I suppose, that the times you completely fuck up draw loom so large in your head.
Completely unrelated: I generally fill in "Current Music" from what's playing in my head. Which is currently something by Scott Joplin, but after two passes through the collection, apparently it's not one of the 40-some Joplin ragtime things I've collected. Arg! What is it? Kismet? I haven't found a good mp3 of that yet... BUM-bum, bum bim bum, bum bam ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum... Doodle doodle doodle etc. Is it Eubie Blake? Is it the C part of something I have?
And that got me to thinking about how we humans tend to operate at about 99%. Nearly everything we do, we do well. There are so many opportunities to screw things up that we don't take. We're the descendents of millions of humans who didn't fuck up.
I mean, think of all the pedestrians you haven't squished with your car. Think of all the people you've met in your life who will still talk to you. Every day you drive down the road and avoid killing people; every day you manage not to nuke the earth between you and someone else.
Which is another reason, I suppose, that the times you completely fuck up draw loom so large in your head.
Completely unrelated: I generally fill in "Current Music" from what's playing in my head. Which is currently something by Scott Joplin, but after two passes through the collection, apparently it's not one of the 40-some Joplin ragtime things I've collected. Arg! What is it? Kismet? I haven't found a good mp3 of that yet... BUM-bum, bum bim bum, bum bam ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum... Doodle doodle doodle etc. Is it Eubie Blake? Is it the C part of something I have?