Quotes About Efficiency

Agricultural losses are costly to prevent. Most irrigation is deployed through canals. They lose water because it seeps through the bottom, evaporates during transmission, and spills out at junctions; a rule of thumb is that almost two-thirds of the water is lost, and often much more. (The figures are imprecise, because some of the "lost" water flows usefully into neighboring fields or percolates back into rivers.)

Man minus the machine is a slave," proclaimed Henry Ford, touting his new tractor. "Man plus the machine is a free man.

There's time enough, but none to spare.

The overwhelmingly large number of investors should seek membership in the passive management club. This group, instead of scratching for a small edge in today's extraordinarily efficient markets, wisely accepts what the markets deliver. Charley makes a compelling case for the market-matching strategy of investing in index funds, touting their simplicity, transparency, low cost, tax efficiency, and superior returns. Winning

Tax-efficient index funds garner a substantial edge over tax-inefficient actively managed mutual funds.

Can it be that there is anything of more consequence in life than the great business in hand, which absorbs the vitality and genius of this age? Surely, we say, it is better to go by steam than to go afoot, because we reach our destination sooner—getting there quickly being a supreme object. It is well to force the soil to yield a hundred-fold, to congregate men in masses so that all their energies shall be taxed to bring food to themselves, to stimulate industries, drag coal and metal

Bureaucracies excel at performing tasks that must be done consistently whether the people assigned to them are brilliant performers or bumbling fools. You can't always count on having Albert Einstein in the patent office, so you design its procedures to work even if you hire Mr. Bean by mistake.

Don't you have any concept of individuality? she asks, annoyed by its presumption at meddling with her internal states. Individuality is an unnecessary barrier to information transfer, says the ghost, morphing into its original form, a translucent reflection of her own body. It reduces the efficiency of a capitalist economy. A large block of the DMZ is still inaccessible to we-me. Are you sure you have defeated the monster?

Would you mind finding Eileen and asking her why she's late? It doesn't normally take her this long to terminate an employee.

But, as Andy pointed out, if being a smart-arse was an offence, the Laundry would not exist in the first place.

I'm a child of the wired generation, unlike some of the suits hereabouts who have their secretaries print everything out and dictate their replies for an audio-typist to send.)

We are, after all, homo economicus .

It's amazing how much work you can get done in three days if you hold a blowtorch to each end of the candle.

Viewed in the right light, a little sprinkle of free market pixie dust can turn the drabbest of public sector services (sewerage, for example) into a rainbow-hued profit unicorn.

wait—something's gumming up Bosch. (Computers aren't as powerful as most people think; running even a small and rather stupid intern can really bog down a server.)

making possible huge economies of scale in the application of force majeure. (Subjects whose mind-bogglingly vast numbers beggar Agent First's imagination: it makes no sense, who needs that many slaves?)

Computers aren't as powerful as most people think; running even a small and rather stupid intern can really bog down a server.)

when it isn't spending half its energy scanning for viruses or painting a pretty drop-shadow under the mouse pointer it runs like greased whippet shit.

The widespread belief among some politicians that government can't do anything right—that the private sector is always better—becomes a corrosive, self-fulfilling prophecy. Government isn't allowed to be bright and cheerful, helpful and efficient.

you've got to learn to think like a state if you work in the Civil Service. Organizations are not human beings and they don't obey the same priorities. They're hives.

One powerful feature of a market economy is that it directs resources to their most productive use. Why doesn't Brad Pitt sell automobile insurance? Because it would be an enormous waste of his unique talents.

economy is the art of making the most of life." Economics is the study of how we do that.

Productivity is the efficiency with which we convert inputs into outputs. In other words, how good

In fact, I have reached the point where I don't see the value of switch-hitting at all.