On Tue, 13 Jul 1999 16:56:26 -0700 (PDT) 
 Matthew Dillon <dillon@apollo.backplane.com> wrote:

 >     You have to consider the probability of an event occuring, not just
 >     the possibility that the event might occur.  If the probability is 
 >     one in a million years, then it is not something you need to worry
 >     about relative to other things that, perhaps, you *should* be worrying
 >     about.

Having been a systems programmer and systems administrator at a
university computer science department, dealing with large (well,
they were large back then :-) systems where 60 students log in
simultaneously to do their "Data Structures in C++" homework, I
can guarantee you that the probability that someone else's buggy
program will kill your unrelated application is a lot more than
"once in a million years".

        -- Jason R. Thorpe <thorpej@nas.nasa.gov>