"we can reasonably presume that the author means 'needlessly inefficient.'" Well, even that's wrong. If there was no need at all, then it wouldn't be done tha

"we can reasonably presume that the author means 'needlessly inefficient.'" Well, even that's wrong. If there was no need at all, then it wouldn't be done that way. I do this stuff for movies I watch all the time: "Well, Morpheus didn't know any better about the humans-as-batteries, and didn't understand how computing power might be a more reasonable use," and "Equilibrium might be set farther in the future than it seems to be, which would explain how things could have gone this far." When you have to fix up what a columnist really meant, I think that's a sign that something is wrong, and I agree with the your parent poster that this columnist either doesn't understand what he's talking about or is writing for effect without regard to accuracy.