> What actually happened is cooler than what could happen

It’s hard to think of a fictional story that beats actually rowing across the world.

And? Who are these people that need all this sympathy from internet strangers? Grow the fuck up and go solve your own damn problems. I can’t stand these “I need internet strangers to tell me that my life is, in fact, hard” people.

How often do skyscrapers fall over, or bridges collapse, or your CPUs fail unexpectedly, or submarines implode. Rarely. In fact, I bet most people reading this thought of the same few examples.

Then look at software. When is the last time you encountered a bug? Have you ever heard of bug free software? Even at the elite, smartest, most educated levels of software, there are still bugs everywhere. Humans are essentially incapable of writing bug free software. And it isn’t because a bunch of uneducated dummies that didn’t get degrees are the ones writing it (as you arrogantly implied). It’s because it’s way fucking harder to do perfectly or near perfectly.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t incredibly hard physical engineering. Obviously there is insanely difficult engineering in nearly any variety. But if you ask a civil engineer to design you a perfect bridge, they probably will. Ask a software engineer with all the experience and education in the world to build you a perfect podcasting app, it simply isn’t happening.

They use their product to do what it’s best at, and use humans where it isn’t yet good enough.

So yes, Bill Gates denies that story. So it just depends on who you believe.

But to flat out say he never said it is too confident.

I can assure you that just about every American that has made it through middle school has been taught about kinetic energy. Let alone high school.