On-topic sort of... I was talking to my wife the other day about the space program, specifically the 1950s-1960s part of it.
I feel that one part of that program that doesn't get much credit is it proved that things can be made really farkin' reliable when we want to.
Prior to that if your car didn't start sometimes, or the drawbridge got stuck sometimes, or your stove wouldn't light sometimes, it was considered normal... stuff sometimes just doesn't work right.
Then we got Apollo 11 where every. single. thing. worked as it was supposed to (under extremely difficult circumstances), and we sent three fragile humans to the moon and brought them back safely. Okay there was probably
something that didn't work perfectly, but all the important things did. Then we did the same thing 6 more times, and only once was there a significant failure.
And now I sit here next to a computer with what, probably 1 billion transistors in it? And they all work properly all the time... except when software tell them not to.
