99 Percent Complete

... delayed if it gets stuck on 99% deleting and ...

I see this "99%" completed pop-up box from many processes, starting with re-installing Windows, and going through updates (to Windows and Windows applications), and file manipulation.

My Physics teacher Mr. Puzey taught us "all we have is Time and Space".

So I am left wondering whether that 99% refers to Time or to Space (a.k.a. Volume).

I think that human brains are wired to think of the passage of time, so we think of "the job nearing completion", and hence the job is stalled.

But of course, this might not be the case; that is, we might NOT be 99% of the way to the Time of completion. It could be that 99 of 100 sub-tasks have been completed, and the dreary long bulky last-task is now underway.

I grew up in the wheat belt, and it could take three days to harvest a paddock of wheat. That's about one percent of a year, so the farmer might think they were "stuck" on the 99% mark of reaping money, but 99% of that year was waiting off-paddock for nature to take its course.

I do understand that something which you and I feel ought to be much faster appears to be in limbo.

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