Imagine you’re a road engineer and you’re designing an access road for a new town. The town will soon be built in a previously uninhabited area. You’ve managing the construction project, but unfortunately no one can tell you what the population of the town will be.
Taking your job seriously, you sit down to design the best road that you can build. You settle on constructing a seven lane highway with regular flyovers to minimize traffic. The road will be fully lit with a state-of-the-art LED lighting system. You add crash barriers and regularly spaced emergency telephones. After much consideration you decide to also include a rest area with parking and toilets. This involves designing a self-contained water and sewerage system, but it’s obviously worth it.
With three months to go until launch day, you discover problems with road drainage. After the panic subsides, the construction team agrees to work around the clock to refit a completely new system for surface water management. By a minor miracle, the work is completed on time.
Opening day finally arrives and the excitement is intense. Everyone agrees the finished product is an engineering marvel. The new town will have the best road in the world.
Unfortunately, it turns out that the town is a remote settlement with a population of 57. The road is mainly used by an old man and a donkey.
The next year, you are again given a road construction project for another new town. Having learned your lesson, you build a modest single lane road. It’s well constructed but nothing special.
Opening day comes again, and it’s revealed that this time the “town” is in fact a major city with a population of 14 million. There are 50 mile tailbacks for six years before a larger road can be built. Your face appears on wanted posters throughout the nation, and you flee the country in disgrace.
Twitter, I forgive you the Fail Whale. And I hope to always walk the middle *ahem* road.
