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.
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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. 🙂