Clouds and VPSes [LWN.net]

Clouds and VPSes

Posted Apr 21, 2022 13:41 UTC (Thu) by smoogen (subscriber, #97)
In reply to: Clouds and VPSes by dullfire
Parent article: Fedora considers deprecating legacy BIOS

There is a common language translation where a phrase gets switched by one or two words and looks the same to the non-native speaker. If we go with 'people like water always take the easiest route', does that make the original phrase better for you?

Clouds and VPSes

Posted Apr 21, 2022 16:08 UTC (Thu) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] (2 responses)

The criticism isn't of the wording, it's of the content. Water frequently does not take the shortest route, as you can determine by looking at a map. Instead, rivers meander all over the place. A river can even erode through the soil into the underlying rock, causing its old meandering path to be literally set in stone.

There may be some truth to the idea of people behaving like water, but it has more to do with their path being heavily determined by history. Both will usually take an established route even when it is long and convoluted. It's only the occasional dramatic event that causes rivers- or people- to change their course.

Clouds and VPSes

Posted Apr 21, 2022 16:16 UTC (Thu) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link]

People are like water: both will stagnate in a local minimum rather than finding the energy to overcome a barrier that constrains them.

Clouds and VPSes

Posted Apr 21, 2022 17:38 UTC (Thu) by johannbg (guest, #65743) [Link]

I propably should have said people are like water, they always take the path of least resistance.

Those that are bothered by the inaccuracy of that can replaces "least resistant" with the "distribution of flow that will lead to the least "total" resistance" but most people should have gotten the gist of what I meant.