Classic Wretchard; Obscure fact noted large, technology and American Pie (Long version).

#9 Charles said:
“Our lives on earth are utterly contingent on a fantastic number of things that have to go exactly right.”

Scarily true. Part of the pride I get in engineering is that so few things go wrong. I live in Atlanta. Traffic on the perimeter highway here (and probably most other places with one) runs at either 10mph or 80mph. Automobiles of every description and state of maintenance driven by people who love life or dont care, who understand the consequences of their actions or dont, who pay attention or owe it, fully conscious or in various states of impairment, mixed in with trucks at the same speeds weighing upwards of 75000 pounds and the wonder is that really massive accidents are rare.

Famous video of all the air traffic on North America at night: http://users.design.ucla.edu/~akoblin/work/faa/color.html. 20,000 airplanes at a time. No collisions, nothing falls out of the sky. All safe home.

Cold safe milk in the fridge. More at the store.

Asparagus from Chile.

Polio? Whats that?

Corresponding with Wretchard in Oz.

The tentativeness is really secondary to the wonder of it all. My Mother’s people had an acetylene generator for lights in the house and a small house at the rear with a special function. Her surviving sisters are 97 and 103. And I’m in awe of all this?

We take much for granted.