[From Bruce Abbott (960129.1015 EST)]
Bill Powers (970129.0430 MST) --
The tale of the Wonderful One-Horse Shay (a type of horse-drawn carriage) is
a nice parable for a control system, although not for a real shay. The
Wonderful One-Horse Shay just kept running and running, year after year,
until finally one day it collapsed into a heap of parts, like the human
beings for which it was a symbol.
Do you have any idea who originated that parable? I remember reading it
long ago, but have no idea where (although in the version I remember it was
a "flivver" rather than a shay, evidently having been updated with the
advent of the ol' tin lizzy).
Bruce