Charles on… anything that comes along

A terrific metaphor from Daniel Jakult of Red Sweater Software:

Say you live in a village that just happens to be situated under a large dam. If the dam breaks, the village dies. If the dam stays, the village lives. Half the village is convinced the damn needs renovation. There are small cracks and a tiny amount of water is leaking through. Some experts say the small cracks are indicative of a larger problem, and eventually they will turn to large cracks, before giving way completely and flooding the town. Others say it’s poppycock, and the dam is strong as ever.

So the village is left with two choices. Fix the dam, perhaps at unwarranted expense, or leave the cracks and hope for the best. When it comes to consequences like wiping out the village, I believe giving the benefit of the doubt to the worried half is worth your consideration.

(Posted using MarsEdit, which Daniel now owns and updates.)

It should be pretty obvious what the topic is, I hope. But this is the most elegant way of putting it that I’ve seen for a while. Very like the Stern analysis, really.

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• The parrot that didn't bark; and an interesting (known) iPod nano bug (25 January 2006; score: 45%)
• One last thing from the Expo: music store divisions (2 September 2004; score: 42.56%)
• An iPod quirk: you haven't played a song until you've played it all (7 December 2005; score: 38.21%)