Tom Nelson highlighted a tweet from an attendee at Gore’s training lecture in Chicago for junior climateers. I thought a comparison would be apt.
Al Gore’s desktop:
Anthony’s desktop:
And in answer to those wondering, no I didn’t clean mine up. It looks like that every day.
I don’t think Al understands the concept of folders.
We had a guy at work that stored everything on the desktop!
but he invented the internet…
lol…that has to be one of the slowest loading desktops…look at all the videos he has stored there.
Al sure is chewing up a lot of RAM with that much crap on his desktop. Sort of gives one an insight into what his brain is like–cluttered and unorganized
Only a genius could work with that desktop.
A sign! A sign!
Probably all stored on the C drive? Ouch!
BTW Google Science…
https://news.google.ca/news/rtc?ncl=d3MMlSv7SEI4XVMY4JHuP8ILrr1CM&ned=ca&topic=snc
Fodder don’t need no stinkin’ folders!
– – – – – – –
Anthony,
Perhaps Gore’s intellectual development is worse than your assessment.
I think Gore doesn’t understand what concepts are in general.
John
Fits his ‘thinking’ – all over the map.
Or shortcuts.
Anthony,
I don’t think he understands the concept of a lot of things
Reminds me of my old maths lecturer who, when he saw you doodling or writing nonsense, used to say “What’s on the page is a picture of what’s in the head!” I think this goes for Al’s desktop… a picture of utter mayhem and confusion.
Yes, the desktop of a frat boy.
Al’s desk top is worse than we thought
Big Al has never been a folder; never needed to be one.
When you own the table, the dealer and the rule-book it’s easy; just bluff, go all-in and rake in the cash!
I
C’mon, you knew someone was going to post this.
My bet is the banjo player is smarter than Al Gore.
That doesn’t tell me anything about either desktop user’s abilities. There is no single best way to use one’s memory; to each his own. I myself don’t even use a desktop on any of my computers.
I use one of
ls -ltr
locate
find
ack
whenever I’m lost. This toolset is a perfect supplement to my feeble memory, and I can find everything I need faster than anybody poking his desktop witha mouse pointer. On my mac, I also use Spotlight. I have so many windows open I never have a chance to see the desktop.
On my physical desktop, I keep things in archeological order (to the distress of my wife, who I know will divorce me over that).
Gore’s desktop is that of a Mac. He’s failed to choose the snap-to-grid option (I forget the exact name), so he could make things look neater easily if he chose.
It will need more than a desktop to model climate correctly, but I wonder what overall effect climate blogs will eventually have over politicians. I note, for example, that JoNova got coverage in the Australian press.
I used to respect the “denier blog” Principia Scientific International but now it seems they have been just about taken over by a certain Alberto Miatello who has written a recent article supposedly “trumping” the “flat-earthers.”
Seven of them have apparently “helped” with the article which is now supposed to represent their “important new energy model” but is in fact full of errors as several commenters have pointed out.
But then, in the comment thread which I’ve been watching from the start, they have deleted without explanation several comments which I had read and which clearly and correctly pointed out the author’s errors. I have added a comment of my own which (in case it gets deleted) reads ..
There is an obvious error in the calculations in this article, because the mean Solar radiation over the whole surface of Earth is most certainly not over 400W/m^2.
It seems the author has overlooked the fact that, when the Sun’s rays strike the surface at an acute angle, then the intensity is reduced because the energy which passes through a 1m^2 cross-section of the radiation then falls over a larger surface area. For example, if the angle is 45 degrees then the surface area is 2m^2 based on the square of the cosine.
The overall effect is that the mean intensity is reduced, not by 50% due to half the globe being in darkness, but by about 75% due to the additional fact explained above.
PSI is barking up the wrong tree in trying to explain surface temperatures using calculations based on incident solar radiation, because the Earth’s surface does not act like a gray body with emissivity 0.88 or whatever. If it did, the Sun could heat the equatorial regions to nearly the boiling point of water, as happens on the Moon.
I agree with Rojclague below. I trust this comment will not be deleted as I have seen several others with opposing views to the author have been without providing any reason. In my view they were valid comments.
I thought they data points from modeling for future possible climate outcomes
The sentence should read “Al Gore doesn’t understand.”
Boy.Some people are easily impressed.Guess that’s why she was listening to the Gorebul.LIV(low info voter)
He’s on the board at Apple so it stands to reason he’s using a Mac. I’m not happy we have that in common, but there is a clean-up feature for all folders. The problem is he’s got so much crap on there it will still overlap.
I’d like to thank George Bush, Laura Bush, Barbara Bush, the Supreme Court of the United States, the Attorney General of Florida, and my favorite Floridian, Hanging Chad for keeping that man out of the Whitehouse.
rogerknights says: ‘Gore’s desktop is that of a Mac. He’s failed to choose the snap-to-grid option (I forget the exact name), so he could make things look neater easily if he chose.’
No no, I think dear old Al is more at home with confusion and abhors order like Nature abhors a vacuum… kind of like his apparent random ‘scientific method’ as outlined in his tragie-comedy movie… a complete lack of structure and logical thought.
It would seem that Al Gore has heard of Chaos Theory after all. Or maybe he’s just a practitioner?
Prince Albert has people to do all his organizing & thinking for him, while he jets around the world looking for non-complaining masseuses, Big Oil barons flush with cash for compliant, bloated US political figures & beach-front property.
But both of you use Windows when a Mac is so superior………..
“I don’t think he understands the concept of a lot of things”
One concept he does understand is how to fleece people of their money … directly to his own pocket.
What! No desktop shortcut to solitaire Anthony?
Sarc>
His desktop is wild and untamed just like his other invention…than Internets!
I hope the junior climateers didn’t take lessons on organization from Al. I’m not the most computer savvy–I have my tech people (my kids) help me keep the desk top clean, but at least its clean.
Well, maybe you could say the Goracle thinks outside the box.
JeffC says:
July 31, 2013 at 3:18 pm
>>>>>>>>>>>
I read the linked article. It is SO bad, that if I had to rate Al Gore versus PSI on credibility, I would rate Al Gore more credible. I note that just over HALF the comments have been deleted. Not even RealClimate deletes that much.
“…
I don’t think Al understands the concept of folders.”
Or, I suspect, much of anything else.
But…but… he has ridden the mighty Moon Worm!
Purely on appearance, I like Al Gore’s better. 🙂
His background image is astronomical in nature, and the layout of the icons on the desktop fits that theme – a random distribution across known(?) space.
Useability-wise, Anthony’s is much better and would be much more productive. Finding anything on Al Gore’s desktop would be a nightmare.
Graeme W says:
> Finding anything on Al Gore’s desktop would be a nightmare.
Depends on who’s doing the finding. Have a read about the Clark’s Nutcracker.
I, for one, find it easier to remember the locations of objects in natural spaces rather than in regular grids. I guess you can say I can’t count or follow rules. It is much easier for me to get lost in American grid-towns (just how many hours I spent looking for where I had parked my car!) than in the less orderly British towns.
I don’t think there is anything useful to be got out of comparing people’s desktops, besides the general understanding that we are all different. Not that I’m flattered to be in the same group with Gore, but I know many exceptionally able people for whom grid-like or otherwise ordered structures are not natural.
Cleaning al’s desktop looks “truly inconvienant”
The comparison is interesting, but a lot of people seem to be letting their biases get in the way. Nothing about Al Gore’s approach is wrong. It’s actually quite good if all he needs (quick) access to is what’s on his desktop. And I can’t think of any godo reason for comments like:
Eric:
No. So no. This isn’t even close to right. The number of videos he has stored on his desktop has practically nothing to do with how fast it’d load.
Sean Peake:
What in the world are you talking about? Do you actually think a desktop would use “a lot of RAM” for any amount of icons? He could put ten times as many icons on his desktop, and it wouldn’t have a noticeable impact on RAM consumption.
AlecM:
Gore’s is using a Mac. Not only did you get this wrong, you effectively say Gore is using the better option.
I wonder if Gore thinks being CHAOTIC will help im understand climate?
Check out he “sales dude”s desk top at 7:53.
To be fair to Al Gore, he is a very intelligent human being. Wrong on global warming? Sure. But while that mess looks very disorganized to us, I can guarantee he knows exactly what’s on there and where it is. Why categorize in folders when you’ve already made a mental map in your head? That isn’t to say that Anthony Watts isn’t also a very intelligent human being. He is probably just more patient and thus makes time to keep things organized.
Gene Selkov:
I prefer to combine the two. I have everything aligned to a grid on my desktop, but within that grid, it’s a mess. I know where everything is though. I can find anything without thinking about it.
I challenge anyone to say I’m wrong to do it that way.
It appears he must be Lost In Space
Its not the clutter or neatness that I find telling. Its the content of the desktops I find well (I expected to see it). Al Gores is very much a lack of actual research and more “shock omfg climate doom” files. Anthony has the spreadsheets, research papers, etc. I half expected to see an image thumbnail on Gore’s machine with a cutout of the earth titled “The core is MILLLLIONS of degrees!”
John Whitman says: July 31, 2013 at 2:47 pm
“I think Gore doesn’t understand what concepts are in general.”
…
Astute observation … this should become a candidate for “Quote of the Week”.
Brandon, you are clearly a reactionary fool. Al Gores desk top illustrates his cluttered and disorganized mind.
To think that this highly organised man could have been president. Thank you chad.
I personally liked the organization capabilities of the old Win 95 program manager which will still run in Win XP if progman.exe and the progman.ini files are imported to the windows directory. Note that is NOT a boot shell but just an icon on the XP desk top which can have any name.
http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/dynaweb_docs/0530/SGI_EndUser/books/SWin_UG/sgi_html/figures/50a.winbasics.gif
Unfortunately only one version of the program manager will run in XP so I can’t have multiple Program manager icons on the desk top like I could in Win 95. It sure helps to neaten up the desk top though and makes things much easier to find if one has a large number of similar oft opened programs or files.
Digital diarrhea. Any bets on who would win in a debate? Paycheck on Watts.
Al’s desktop looks nightmarish to me, but I have to agree with Brandon.
Over years of managing staff in a policy environment, I learned that apparent mess and chaos is just the way some people like to operate, and that it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are inefficient, incompetent or can’t find things. It can mean that, but very often doesn’t.
Mind you, someone as rich as Al just pays people to organise his life for him (other than his desktop), so it is quite possible that his desktop reflects his brain.
This is what I mean. I pointed out the absurdity of some of the things people are saying, and that provoked Skrallz into saying:
Then again, given my desktop has some similarities with Gore’s,* maybe I deserve this.
*At least I’m not foolish enough to use a Mac.
Brandon Shollenberger says:
July 31, 2013 at 4:14 pm
The comparison is interesting, but a lot of people seem to be letting their biases get in the way. Nothing about Al Gore’s approach is wrong. It’s actually quite good if all he needs (quick) access to is what’s on his desktop. And I can’t think of any godo reason for comments like:
Eric:
lol…that has to be one of the slowest loading desktops…look at all the videos he has stored there.
No. So no. This isn’t even close to right. The number of videos he has stored on his desktop has practically nothing to do with how fast it’d load.
=========================================
Yes yes yes for Macs
http://lifehacker.com/5893054/an-overly-cluttered-desktop-can-seriously-slow-down-your-mac++clean-it-up-for-a-noticeable-speed-boost
rogerknights says:
July 31, 2013 at 3:11 pm
Gore’s desktop is that of a Mac. He’s failed to choose the snap-to-grid option (I forget the exact name), so he could make things look neater easily if he chose.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
It’s called “Arrange by” in Desktop preferences with lots of options on how you want things arranged. And while I sometimes have a few things out of place, my desktop (on all my computers) looks a lot more like Anthony’s than Al Gore’s. I bet he (or one of his minions) uses a search routine to find his information. It looks to me like he doesn’t know how to store things in appropriate places and just dumps them to his desktop. Most Apple (like Windows) programs remember the last several things you open and where they are stored. I bet he just opens the app and clicks on the file. He probably has no idea where it is stored. I worked with computers a bit and I knew lots of users like that. I have 3 Mac’s and four PC’s and none of them are the mess that Gore’s is. It would drive my old IT people crazy. But he has lots of money for memory and brand new fast computers so I am sure it all works fine. Or someone fixes it for him.
rogerknights says:
July 31, 2013 at 3:11 pm
Gore’s desktop is that of a Mac. He’s failed to choose the snap-to-grid option (I forget the exact name), so he could make things look neater easily if he chose.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
It’s called “Arrange by” in Desktop preferences with lots of options on how you want things arranged. And while I sometimes have a few things out of place, my desktop (on all my computers) looks a lot more like AXXXXX’s than Al Gore’s. I bet he (or one of his minions) uses a search routine to find his information. It looks to me like he doesn’t know how to store things in appropriate places and just dumps them to his desktop. Most Apple (like Windows) programs remember the last several things you open and where they are stored. I bet he just opens the app and clicks on the file. He probably has no idea where it is stored. I worked with computers a bit and I knew lots of users like that. I have 3 Mac’s and four PC’s and none of them are the mess that Gore’s is. It would drive my old IT people crazy. But he has lots of money for memory and brand new fast computers so I am sure it all works fine. Or someone fixes it for him. (there – deleted A’s name for moderator)
If Gore is using a Mac, it looks like he is using a micro soft program. It is easy to find everything on a Mac, with a totally clean desk top.
Get Fences from Stardock. It allows you to organize your shortcuts. I hate a desktop like gores, so it was a real boon to me when I started using Fences.
Desktop pollution causes increases on hardware warming which in turn shortens the lifespan of the entire system.
As Kurt Vonnegut once said: “If you think my DESK looks messy,” (tapping his head) “you should see it in here!”
So the opposite of 24 where the good guys had Macs and the baddies windows, and it makes little difference to a mac having it like that still faster than windoze!
Al probably has a custom computer using some sort of CO2 cooling system especially considering that his CPU may have a “feever”.
Albert’s an accummulator. He downloads … and apparently “loses” the downloaded files so has to download them again – hence the e.g. (1) part of several/many filenames.
I suspect that he doesn’t have the habit of opening files by clicking on desktop icons. There are so many overlayed in places that nearly it’s impossible to select the correct one.
The lack of folders is disturbing but not unusual. He probably has people who help him to find files; after all, it’s probably their fault that he can’t find them.
Funny… my physical desk and bookshelves and office in general are usually cluttered and only vaguely organized. My PC desktops, however, are neatly organized with things arranged in groups of type (ie. bottom left corner is recording software, top right is utilities, top left is core stuff like email, word processing).
I can’t even imagine ever letting a primary desktop look like Al’s cluttered, nonfunctional mess. But as others have mentioned, it seems to match his outlook on life: Screw details, details suck! Just create a “big picture” and look at that!
I find the file/link names on Al’s desktop more interesting than the clutter. For example:
· Media Matters Pundits finals
· Media Matters video round two
· Media Matters Policymakers finals
· Sandy and WTC slides
· Hansen Hiroshima Option 1
· No GW for 10 years.key
· bell curve slide 4.key
· dice.key
· Old Man.mov
· Jobs.mov
Order vs chaos.
Logic vs feelings.
Note how many of those links are Media Matters. That should tell you everything you need to know.
Gore’s using a Mac. Anthony’s using a PC. Gotta give Gore the win on this one. The “desktop” in Mac can be made all neat and proper like the Windows “do it our way or else” layout (although Microsoft stole the “windows” from Apple, they sure as heck never got “the touch and feel”).
When Steve Jobs dictatorially disabled even third party hacks that let me change my blobby desktop font back to the crystal clear original Geneva 9pt screen font, I switched to the PC and tweaked it until it is now as compactly clear as the original Mac.
@NikFromNYC – At work, Windows is THE platform. But I can always tell a Mac user. When I go to their desktop, if they have the task bar at the top, I know they want a Mac, and not a Windows computer. 😉
(Truth be told, when I had to use both – because we supported both – I always put my Windows task bar on the top as well, but I called my hard drive on the Mac, “Sea Drive”. That drove true Mac-o-philes CRAZY!)
Pathway, that is nonsense.
The fact that someone’s personal environment is messy does not mean that they are driven by emotion rather than logic in their professional work.
You obviously haven’t seen many offices and home-based studies of scientists (or philosophers).
NikFromNYC says: Heh. And runs about as well. 9pt Geneva? Goodness, will your printer even print it?
Everything on his desktop say nature’s one bad lady… all bad.
No wonder he lives in the land of the woes of woes!
Gore (as in “bloody” – interesting lexical connection, eh, considering the likely effect of the policies he advocates?) knows full well what he is preaching is crap. He has no compunction about lying through his teeth to amass power and wealth. He is truly a pustule, a suppurating furuncle, on the kiester of climate science.
I don’t use the desktop for much of anything. If I want to find something I’ve saved, I open up an explorer window and go where I put it. I rarely see my desktop (usually only on startup and shutdown).
OMG!
A decided reflection on the differences in the organization of thought processes!
.
I just noticed. Our host has a “Recycle Bin” on his desktop.
But no “Toxic Waste Dump”, “Landfill”, “Biowaste”, “Biohazard”.
Windows in the EU requires as many as 9 different receptacles to separate refuse; depending on the jurisdiction. 🙂
tidy desk(top) tidy mind
Not sure being a flat-desktopper translates to being a flat-earther but I see some correlation.
Sign of a disordered mind?
We used to have the proverb: Order is for simpletons (no insult here), intellectuals have mastered chaos.
Al Gore must surely have an Al Gore Rhythm to deal with the mess. 😉
Anthony is missing an ‘Al Gore’ icon on his desktop.
In an idle moment he could hit the delete key
‘Do you wish to delete Al Gore?’
Yes yes yes
‘I don’t think Al understands the concept of folders’ or many other concepts either like basic maths , but it does look a bit odd for the ‘father ‘ of the internet .
But to be fair given this failed politician has made many millions out selling ,ironically, ‘hot air ‘ I think it does not matter .
Looking at Gore’s wallpaper I believe it is indicative of the size of the void between his ears…
Looks to me like Al if very unorganized.
James Allison:
Still no. The difference in performance will be completely negligble with the number of icons Gore has. It would take at least hundreds of files to cause a discernible performance hit. In the article you linked to, the guy had over 2,000. That’s why it mattered.
Gore has maybe a hundred files on his desktop. There is no practical difference between having that many and having 10.
JimF says:
July 31, 2013 at 7:59 pm
“Gore’s using a Mac. Anthony’s using a PC. Gotta give Gore the win on this one. The “desktop” in Mac can be made all neat and proper like the Windows “do it our way or else” layout (although Microsoft stole the “windows” from Apple, they sure as heck never got “the touch and feel”).”
Jobs stole the Window concept from Xerox Parc.
Gates tried to license Jobs’ system for PC’s but Jobs wouldn’t deal.
So Microsoft rebuilt it.
Brandon, admit that you don’t know what you’re talking about. Admit it.
UK Sceptic says:
August 1, 2013 at 1:32 am
Looking at Gore’s wallpaper I believe it is indicative of the size of the void between his ears…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes, but is it revolving ‘widdershins’?
Like most “managers” he messed up the one thing he does wihtiout a secretary/ personal assistant. It is a common phenomenon with “mamagers”, they are overgrown babies who need to be minded.
If I did not know the identity of the two individuals who made those two desktops then what could I deduce about the individuals? {assuming an individual made them both, that they weren’t constructed by many individuals over a period of time}
I think many profiling type aspects could be deduced. There are professionals who make a living from doing that kind of deduction.
If we know a great deal about each of the individuals, which is the case with Anthony and Al, then several more orders of magnitude info can be deduced.
One thing I can deduce is that one individual is not in a situation where there is the expectation of efficient info management whereas the other individual has a significantly greater expectation. There are many other aspects that can be projected.
This is fun.
John
It’s somewhat offensive to see this kind of childish name calling on this otherwise excellent site. Whether a person appears to be messy/cluttered or neat/organized has little or no relationship to their abilities or intelligence. You aren’t going to find studies to support the idea the a clutters computer desktop indicates any kind of low mental ability or that an organized desktop indicates superior mental ability.
On a secondary note, as a system admin and desktop support for over 17 years I know for a fact that the current Mac OS has a much superior search function than the Windows desktop. Finding relevant data/information on a Mac is significantly easier than on Windows. The underlying organization of the files in the user space is irrelevant to your ability to find the data.
Skrallz:
You come across as kind of creepy. I hope you aren’t representative of… anyone.
John Whitman:
Assuming you didn’t use the file names to help, there’s really not much you could deduce. Practically anything you came up with could be countered with a number of other possibilities. No decent profiler would ever draw much of a conclusion from these two images.
No. At that point it’d mostly be projecting biases.
Your use of the word “projected” is spot on. For all you know, Al Gore has a perfectly efficient directory structure that he uses for thousands of different things. That is not precluded by a cluttered desktop. In fact, having a cluttered desktop can be an efficient way to access the myriad things one doesn’t want to put into a hierarchical structure.
I’m curious what people would say if they saw my desktop/directory structure. I’m curious how that’d contrast to if they instead saw servers I’ve setup/ran.
Many of histories greatest minds were notoriously scatterbrained and disoragnized.
Many sociopaths are known to be meticulous and organized.
Therefore, using the same “logic” as many others here, we can conclude that Gore is a genious and Watts is a sociopath.
QED.
Now, if this seems ridiculous and void of logic, that’s because it is. Just like this thread and any “conclusions” that people are drawing from it. Comical, perhaps. Substantive, not even close.
Jeeze. I’m pure feng shui austere or something. I shove all my folders off to the sides or sorta hide them among stuff in my background photos. http://oi39.tinypic.com/s3g6me.jpg
– – – – – – – – –
Brandon Shollenberger,
Hey, appreciate your thoughts on my comment.
Per your first point, we disagree on the potential yield of comparative profiles of the two desktops as is. I would enjoy an analysis by a couple of independent (of each other) highly ranked (based on success rate) teams of professional forensic experts. I think there is potentially a surprising amount of deductions that are reasonable based on the desktops ‘as is’. Any deductions would not necessarily reflect negatively on either individual, right?
Per your second point. The nature of your desktop, although I am sure is extremely interesting, adds nothing to the comparative analysis of the two desktops in the main post. As, to efficiency of visually scanning the icons in the two desktops, the one with icons in rows and columns would be a more efficient scan; thus my comment about efficiency of info management. I looks to me like maybe you presumed I was being pejorative to Gore by that observation; if so why the presumption?
John
RCon, definitely.
John Whitman:
Indeed. However, there are too many reasons one might have a desktop like either of these for one to glean much useful information. This is especially true if one doesn’t know what the machines are used for.
For example, both desktops could easily belong to the same person if one was a work machine and the other a home machine. The layout alone tells us nearly nothing.
On the contrary. It adds two things. First, contrasting my personal desktop to the desktop of an MS 2008 server I manage shows exactly what I mentioned above: A cluttered personal machine with a professionally organized “work” machine.
Second, it shows one should be careful of what they conclude about Al Gore based on this. People who criticize Gore for his desktop ought to criticize me as well. I doubt many would do so outside the context of this specific issue. That makes my example a useful cautionary tale.
I wasn’t. I simply know you’re wrong. Grids are not always the most efficient when it comes to visually scanning. Squarish layouts like that are not inherently optimal. In fact, clustering is often used as a way to increase search efficiency.
Moreover, nothing about Watts’s desktop indicates efficiency. We have no idea what is directory structure is like. It could be a complete mess. It could have a crazy amount of nesting. It could have any number of other issues we don’t know about. What we do know is if all Gore needs quick access to is on his desktop, and he can instinctively remember where things are, he’ll at least match Watts on efficiency.
I know I can. I can quickly navigate my desktop with 40+ icons with my eyes closed. If I didn’t have that many icons on my desktop, I’d be less efficient. And if not for laziness, I’d probably turn off the gridding feature too.
“I don’t think Al understands the concept of ANYTHING.”
FTFY, Anthony.
Macs have a ‘desktop’ folder where all those files are listed in a window – in alphabetical order, by date, kind or size etc. My desktop looks just like Al’s – but I never even look at it…
@Fred Jensen – so does windows.
Al Gore has made tons of money off of the AGW claim. Never forget that. Was money his only reason – who knows? He’s despicable.
People still click on desktop icons/leave them visible?
Put your most used programs on a toolbar or in a hotcorner, hit the windows/super/whatever-mac-calls-it key and type a letter or two, hit enter… what am I missing?
I mean, perhaps if you were constantly shutting programs down and reopening them, or rebooting your machine all the time it might make sense… I dunno, do windows systems still need to be shut down regularly?
@max – Re: “do windows systems still need to be shut down regularly?”
Only if you want to use it efficiently.
Efficiently like, electricity use, or some imagined efficiency where a system which slows down and gets unstable is superior to one which doesn’t have those problems?