“To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer.”
In my younger years, I participated in a charity run called the Dolphin Dash. Before the race started, we were told there would be water stations along the route, so I didn't bother to bring a water bottle. Since I wasn't particularly fit, it wasn't long before I was thirsty.
I straggled along for several minutes more. And then I saw it! Just ahead, I spotted the first water station! But alas, the route turned left about a 100 yards before it got there.
"No matter," I told myself. "I can wait until the route winds back to the water station."
After several turns in the route and what seemed like an eternity, I noticed the same water station off down the road to the right. But the route didn't turn toward it; it kept going straight. Nor were there runners stopping for a drink there. Nor were there runners even near it.
The route never did pass that water station; nor any of the others for that matter.
Tired and thirsty, I eventually dragged myself across the finish line, where the event volunteers recorded my time and the number from my shirt into a laptop. As I passed, I overheard them say that they weren't going to wait to record the times for all the stragglers.
Once inside, we waited so long before they started announcing the winners, that even the stragglers had all shown up. When they started handing out prizes, I saw looks of surprise by the winners, who made comments such as, "Wow, I had no idea that I did so well!" But I saw looks of indignation in still others, who had clearly thought that they should have gotten at least 3rd or 4th place.
Curious, I stepped outside the room and saw a computer print-out of runners, neatly sorted by time, posted near the door. I noticed that the top ranked runners had a zero time. Wondering what that was all about, I went back inside just as they announced that there had been a mistake in giving out the prizes. But it was too late, as many of the prize-winners had already left the event.
I didn't hang out long enough to see how (or if) they sorted things out, because I had other things to do that day. But I started thinking about how things got so fouled up.
I thought about the computer program they were using to keep track of the runners' times and wondered about that zero time. Perhaps zero was the default time for runners before they crossed the finish line. Then I thought back to the event volunteers' comment about not waiting for all the stragglers. Perhaps, I thought, the prize winners were those very stragglers that never had their time recorded. Perhaps the winners were the slowest runners of all. After all, no matter how quickly you finish the race, a zero time beats it!
It was then that I came up with the term "Techo-devolution" to describe using high technology to solve problems that are better solved by lower technology tools. For example, they could have simply placed the numbers off the runners' shirts on a metal spike (the ones you can buy to hold receipts) as people crossed the finish line. That would have been cheaper and worked much better, as long as they remembered to flip the stack over before announcing the prizes!
I never found out whether the location of the water stations was planned by a computer too, but I wouldn't be surprised. After all, that was really fouled up too.
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