Tag Archive for "programmers"

I’m sure you’ve noticed how bizarre the meters are for installing software, copying, downloading etc.  The copying is going to take 3 days 4 hours and 27 minutes, then 2 mins later it will take 3 hours 32 mins, then 27 mins and finally it’s all over quicker than you can make a cup of coffee.  Then there are those downloads where there is one minute left to go which somehow ends up taking far longer than making a cup of coffee.  Even  the last ten seconds seems to stretch out towards infinity.  Since software like this is designed by software designers and/or programmers we can only assume that they do it according to their own experience of time, which leaves us with some strange observations about how they must live.  The software designer with two minutes to catch the bus surely must inevitably arrive an hour after it has gone.  Another programmer is writing his Christmas list only to find that by the time he’s finished it is Boxing Day.  They must all miss their birthdays one way or another and have absolutely no idea how old they actually are.  Clearly, they never manage to get married unless it is to another designer or programmer with the same bizarre time perception as their own and even then it must be hit and miss whether they make it to the church or registry office at the right time and don’t manage to end up at the Reception before the wedding.   Some of them, of course, may have the good fortune of stretching the last moments of their lives off into infinity with “just a few seconds left …” whilst others never knew what hit them as their retirement flashed past reducing from 25 years 6 weeks 3 days and 27 minutes to 1 day 3 hours and 4 mins before the first year of their retirement is over!  So; next time you are faced with a digital countdown that is apparently defying all known laws of physics spare a thought for these poor miserable people in their strange universe where the worst TV advert can last all evening and lovemaking is reduced to a fraction of a second instead of the usual six years three weeks two days four hours 28 minutes and 33 seconds :-)