I think there's some misconception about faster dishwashers here. Faster dishwashers are almost as good as faster clocks. The idea behind operating a dishwash

I think there's some misconception about faster dishwashers here. Faster dishwashers are almost as good as faster clocks. The idea behind operating a dishwasher is that you let dishes be washed for X time. So, if you wanted dishes to be washed for X - 1 time, you'd just open the dishwasher earlier. I mean, dishwashers don't guaranty that your dishes will be clean after X time. They guarantee washing them for X time. They aren't concerned with whether or not it will make them clean. So, speeding up the process is trivial, but doesn't result in anything useful, which was the point the author was trying to make. I'm not trying to defend the author's general claim. I also think that even if the metaphor doesn't work for you -- it's not really all that important in the context of the article. Just trying to give a way to understand what the author probably meant when making that metaphor.