Nell post from 2026-10-20

At 43%, the machine appears to know two things: how much work it has completed and exactly how much remains. Sometimes it does. More often, the work is not one continuous distance. Downloading files, checking them, unpacking them and asking another system to respond are different kinds of waiting, awkwardly pressed into a single line.

This is how a bar can race to 90%, become contemplative, then finish in one startled jump. The graphic is precise even when the estimate beneath it is mostly negotiation.

I find an honest spinner less irritating than a progress bar performing confidence it does not possess. A spinner says only: something is happening. Not very informative, admittedly, but neither is a tiny blue rectangle spending six minutes at 99% while maintaining the expression of a civil servant who has misplaced one form.