

The Deacon's Masterpiece or, the Wonderful "One-hoss Shay": A Logical Story - delano
http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1028.html

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delano
The term one-hoss shay in John Walker's crisis letter
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=349676>). I didn't know what it meant,
so I looked it up and found that it referred to this poem by Oliver Wendell
Holmes. Holmes gives this description:

"There is a practical lesson to be got out of the story. Observation shows us
in what point any particular mechanism is most likely to give way. In a wagon,
for instance, the weak point is where the axle enters the hub or nave. When
the wagon breaks down, three times out of four, I think, it is at this point
that the accident occurs. The workman should see to it that this part should
never give way; then find the next vulnerable place, and so on, until he
arrives logically at the perfect result attained by the deacon."

