Danny Hillis, who pioneered the conceptual design behind high-speed super computers, now recommends what he calls “a new aesthetic of slowness.” To illustrate what that might look like he told a story about how in the last decade Oxford University replaced the gigantic oak beams in the ceiling of one of its dining halls. When the beams began to show signs of rotting, university officials were concerned that they wouldn’t be able to find lumber large and strong enough to replace them. But the university’s forester explained to them that, when the dining hall was built 500 years ago, their predecessors had planted a grove of oak trees so that the university could replace the beams when the time came.