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Poll: How does consistency of result affect your usage?

1 points by markessien ↗ HN
Imagine two scenarios : You have to travel 300 miles by train. There are two trains - 1 requires 4 hours to arrive at your destination (the slow train), and the other requires just 20 minutes to arrive at your destination (the fast train).

However, the slow train ALWAYS requires 4 hours, never less, never more and is 100% reliable. The fast train however, 1% of the time does not arrive at all, but stops at some random town somewhere in between. How to get from the random town to your destination or back to the start is not known to you, but it is possible.

You want to travel home from a conference. Which of the two trains do you take?

2 comments

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geuis
I wonder if your question isn't a little off though. If I'm coming home from a conference of other important event, that's more lax than trying to get there on time. If I have to be somewhere and it's really important and I can't miss it, I would likely take the slow train. I can build my schedule around that and be guaranteed to get there. However coming home means I can get there any time that I want, so I'll take the fast train. If I get the 1% train I am minorly inconvenienced but 99% sure to get home in 20 minutes.
markessien
Yes, the point is that there is no real time pressure, it's just a matter of preference or convenience.