"You do realize that what you just said is logically and mathematically impossible right ?"
You realize that you just made a huge, invalid ASSUMPTION about those numbers, right? Actually more than one, but I'm not even going to bother with the other.
People who commit violent crimes do not always -- or even usually -- commit them with guns. However, people OFTEN defend themselves with guns. Usually merely displaying one can avert the crime (it is the most-often used method of "defense" with a gun).
"That claim is proven false by the second part of the statistic I DID give."
For somebody who says "show me cause and effect", that is a pretty silly thing to say. The second statistic you gave doesn't "prove" anything at all. But if your statement "guns don't change the suicide rate" is correct, that would prove the point I made: when guns aren't available, people use other means. In order for your statement to "prove" anything, you would have to show cause-and-effect. In fact you contradict yourself in the very next sentence. You wrote: "Men use guns more often than women, and as a result suicide attempts among men are much higher..." That directly contradicts the sentence that came immediately before it: "guns don't change the suicide rate".
Maybe you should get the arguments straight in your own head before attempting to argue with somebody else.
"As for your points on crime there - they aren't actually all that meaningful - because there are several BETTER explanations for dropping crime rates."
On the contrary, they are very meaningful indeed, regardless of the actual cause. They prove, beyond doubt, that in the United States, more guns do NOT mean more crime. While correlations alone do not prove cause-and-effect, they can DISPROVE cause-and-effect. We know that more guns do not mean more crime, because according to the government's own statistics, more guns per capita -- and more guns being carried by law-abiding citizens (see the graphic of the states that have liberalized their carry laws) -- correlate to a lower crime rate. Contrary to popular belief, there is NO evidence at all that more guns mean more crime in the United States. I should also point out that during that same period, the AR15-style so-called "assault weapon" has become wildly more popular.
"More importantly while day-to-day type gun crime have gone down, large-scale gun MASSACRES have gone UP!"
Absolute bullshit. They have gone down. I don't know who you have been listening to, but if you take any two-year or longer average (INCLUDING the last year) and compare it to a similar period 20 or 30 years ago, you will find that you are very much mistaken. And it's not just mass shootings that are down: school shootings are down, too. Don't take my word for it. Look it up at the DOJ and the newer Bureau of Crime Statistics. I'm using YOUR OWN GOVERNMENT'S numbers.
"The liberal point was that gun massacres (and indeed most other gun crime) tend to use specific high-powered weaponry that can kill a great many people in a short spate of time."
And yet, if you believe your government's own statistics, those crimes are drastically lower than they were 20 years ago, even while the popularity and per-capita ownership of those same specific weapons has gone way up. Once again: I'm not claiming any cause-effect relationship here... but also again, it shows that one particular cause-effect relationship could NOT exist.
"Nobody needs THAT for self-defense. The only possible USE of a gun like that is to kill a lot of people very fast and there is absolutely NO legal situation where that is an acceptable action."
On the contrary. The Second Amendment (according to your own Supreme Court, and also the very people who created it), guarantees the right of citizens to bear military-style arms, specifically for the purpose of repelling a military if and when necessary. Again, don't take my word for it. Stop listening to Democrat propaganda, and read some actual fucking history. I have, and it's pretty damned obvious that you haven't.
"That's really, REALLY crappy! for a 15Mhz, 1287k ram device! i would have espected at least ten times that!"
I've noticed a LOT of gear lately using rechargeables where replaceable batteries would have made a lot more sense.
Take outdoor equipment for example. I've seen a lot of otherwise high-end flashlights and headlamps that use rechargeables... and I won't even look at them twice. If I'm out in the wilderness for 5 days, a regargeable is almost completely useless to me. Same with "lantern" - style devices, and just about anything else that can be battery powered, like cameras.
I mean, seriously. For some of this equipment, rechargeable batteries make no sense at all. Yet they want to sell it for $150 or whatever. I just laugh.
If one rig can produce enough to "make" $50 million a day, then the retail price is far too high.
But if, as the other poster mentioned, that is actually gross revenue rather than profit, it's a bit of a different story. I'd still be interested in what kind of margin they're operating on.
And before I forget, here's another little statistic for you:
According to statistics, the most effective deterrent by far to violent crime, for a woman, is a gun. Most of the time simply displaying it prevents the crime. But if that fails (and it does, a small percentage of the time), it can actually be used. And it works.
"Or perhaps statistics like "80% of all gun owners are male, but 70% of all gun crime victims are male" - if guns protect you from crime shouldn't that statistic be EXACTLY the other way around ?"
Or statistics like: people defend themselves from violent crime with guns 20 or more times for every crime actually committed with a gun?
And quite frankly, I don't give the slightest damn about the suicide figures. In places where guns are not available (Japan is one example) people commit suicide by other means. To use your own argument: show me cause-and-effect.
"Or maybe correlation does not imply causation... But the first set of statistics we CAN rationally evaluate..."
Correlation may not imply causation, but we have decades of statistics -- government's OWN statistics -- that show the correlation. And it probably isn't what you think.
Let me give you just a few solidly known correlations -- for which we have ample, hard-to-refute statistics -- as examples:
The areas in the United States that have the strictest firearms restrictions have had, and continue to have, the highest violent crime rates, including crimes involving guns.
The areas where restrictions are lifted tend to see a lasting reduction in the rate of crime, including violent crime. Washington D.C. is a good, specific example.
Per-capita crime in the United States, including violent crime, is HALF of what it was 20 years ago, and even less compared to 30 years ago. It has been a pretty steady and consistent decline. That includes firearms homicides. And yes, even mass shootings and school shootings are DOWN. And during that entire time, per-capita gun ownership has been going steadily UP. Not only that, but states that allow concealed carry have MULTIPLIED during that same period.
I really don't care much whether you accept a cause-effect relationship. One thing we DO know from the statistics is that one cause-effect relationship definitely does not exist: more guns do not cause more crime in the United States. Because we have more guns -- lots more guns -- but crime has dropped dramatically.
So cause-and-effect or no, the correlation is pretty much indisputable. At least if you have any inclination at all to believe GOVERNMENT (DOJ and BCS) statistics.
"Yep, wonder how many conservatives notice their hypocrisy as they pick up their welfare checks, their farm subsidies, or other gov help? "
Depends on what you mean by government help. But I agree, hypocrisy exists. On both "sides".
"And surely we can remove living wages! After all, children in sweatshops is a great way for the owners to rake in money. No need to feed or clothe the workers, just chain them to their benches. There are more where they came from. "
To be clear, I wasn't referring to just "living wages", but government-guaranteed living wages whether you work or not. The kind of approach that has been killing the Swiss and Sweden's economy, for example. (I have that on authority of aquaintences who live there.)
"Love your Darwinian approach. "
It's not "my" approach. I was referring to other people.
"BTW, I don't necessarily support janitors making $50 / hr same as doctors, but I don't think paying them $1 a day is right either."
Nor do I. I have to wonder why you wrote this. Making big assumptions about what I meant, rather than taking the words I wrote at face value?
"Its turned into a poker game, where big business holds all the chips, and individuals barely have enough for the blinds to even play."
Even if that were true, it is still incidental to my original comments. The law hasn't changed. If enforcement of the law is defective, then certainly that should be addressed. But that is not a flaw or change in the law, it is a problem of enforcement.
"That's a setting "Sidebar icon size". Set it to large and it is rather fat."
No, it isn't. The sidebar icon size has absolutely nothing to do with the size or appearance of the scrollbar in OS X Lion or Mountain Lion.
"So for example if the web browser is grey the controls on the webpage in color are easier to see than if the browser used color controls. Since users are familiar with the browser interface they don't need to have their attention drawn."
Yes, that is my point. However, the last sentence is incorrect. Even when you are "used to" the interface, there is a measurable (and significant) increase in the amount of time it takes to find and click a control, when they are gray vs. colored.
"This isn't change for the sake of change. It is change for the sake of ubiquitous computing."
You have misunderstood me. I wasn't referring to such assumptions. I was referring to things we KNOW, based on decades of research, about how humans interact with computers.
Examples:
We KNOW (this isn't a guess or assumption) that the eye and brain perceive "3D" controls better and faster than they do flat controls. We KNOW that the eye and brain can discern between different-colored objects better and faster than they can the same objects if they are gray. Etc. Those aren't assumptions, they are objective reality.
"Of course they are. New hardware capabilities are what should drive new interfaces."
We are not talking about the same things here. I didn't say there was any problem with "new interfaces". What I said was: it's stupid to throw away decades of research into EFFECTIVE human-computer interface, in order to build those new interfaces.
For the inevitable car analogy: you are apparently talking about building better controls for steering, gauges, etc. Which is all great. What *I* am saying is that in building those new controls, it's dumb to throw out everything we already know about how humans interact with cars.
" there's also high endurance SLC at ~1M cycles and eMLC at ~30k cycles, the downside is a much higher $/GB"
Yes, but this is Slashdot. For the most part, while many participants here may be professionals, they are using consumer-grade computer products. The causal mention by OP of enterprise-level flash is probably inappropriate.
"Let's toss out the labels again, and point out that if you continue to accomplish things you aren't an "entrenched elite". If you don't accomplish things, then by definition you are not meritorious because there is no accomplishment to which to attach merit."
This illustrates the common improper use of such terms. I think GP was saying that a "meritocracy" soon becomes anything but. Which may be true. But you can say the same thing about lots of systems: not one "communist" country was ever really communist (most were not even half-assed when it came to socialism)... they became "entrenched elites". (Which is another misnomer itself: there is nothing particularly "elite" about those in power.)
Further, "capitalist" nations have gradually been becoming less capitalist over time, as governments expanded their intervention in the economy (usually with harsh consequences). The United States has had so much government intervention in so many things it's pretty hard to call it capitalist with a straight face.
But as for the main point: reaction to fear. I think the assertions are pretty hilarious. "Liberals" today want the Government to save them from everything... from all the harsh realities of life. Everything from keeping scary guns away from them (which is about as fear-based as it gets... rational analysis of the statistics do not support that view), to making a living ("Everybody deserves a government-guaranteed livable wage!"). While conservatives tout a more Darwinist approach to such problems.
Yeah, I feel for you. I haven't used Visual Studio in a while, but this dumbing-down of the interfaces is not a good thing. Visual Studio is a complex set of tools, and you need all the interface help you can get.
"Scrollbars in Mountain Lion expand when you move to them. So they agree."
But they don't expand to the same size they used to be. So they don't agree.
"As for the drop off in color. I agree Apple is going very bland and very sedate. OTOH they have been getting an older user base."
Getting an older user base is reason to use MORE color, not less, because it is easier to discern different-colored objects from one another than it is gray objects. That was my point: gray objects are a step backward, from an efficient interface point of view.
"What they are thinking is they need to break that cycle."
Perhaps. But they should know better. Change for the sake of change is seldom good; it is usually destructive. It has to be an improvement, not just a change, if they want to attract customers.
I will elaborate:
Most things in the world are the way they are, not randomly, but for real reasons. They aren't always good reasons, but often they are. Sometimes, those things have evolved via the combined experience of generations of people, chipping away at a problem.
In those cases (which are very numerous, and the study of "human-computer interfaces" is one of them), change merely for the sake of change ignores the reasons for why things are, and simply throws away all those accumulated advances. Often without adding any actual improvements of their own. Many people have said Canonical's "Unity" is a classic example, and many others have said Windows 8 is another.
If you want to make changes, make them improvements, not change just for the sake of change. Otherwise you are not building, you are destroying. And in order to improve, usually you have to build on what came before... not just start fresh with "new" ideas that, if you merely bothered to look, would turn out to be things somebody else tried 30 years ago.
"And those two things mean that Microsoft application ecosystem is still Windows XP compatible"
Um... no, it's not, and hasn't been since Windows 7. I you want to run an awful lot of XP programs -- even 64-bit XP programs -- you have to use "XP Mode", which is a virtual machine, inside but separate from the main OS. And on a lot of computers, even getting XP mode to run entails jumping through hoops.
But even so, the basic interface in Windows 7 is still the same. Because it works. New hardware capabilities, etc. are not an excuse to throw away well-established, and well-justified, human interface principles.
"The narrowness of the scroll bars is totally irrelevant because any modern Apple input device lets you scroll with two fingers on the mouse."
It is VERY FAR from irrelevant. For one thing, the built-in gestures don't allow you to scroll all the way up or down. For another, scrolling using gestures, especially with "inertia", is slow and inaccurate in long documents. You end up hunting back and forth. With the scrollbar, you can to to a spot in the document with relative speed and precision.
But regardless, I'm not "blaming" Apple for anything. I was simply making the observation that the changes they made are contrary to well-known human interface principles.
"Tying genetic characteristics to economic advancement is an extremely iffy proposition, since there are far stronger fluctuations from historically contingent accidents."
From the abstract, it does appear that the authors suggest a cause, rather than mere correlation. That might have been unwise on their part.
Slashdot Mirror
"You do realize that what you just said is logically and mathematically impossible right ?"
You realize that you just made a huge, invalid ASSUMPTION about those numbers, right? Actually more than one, but I'm not even going to bother with the other.
People who commit violent crimes do not always -- or even usually -- commit them with guns. However, people OFTEN defend themselves with guns. Usually merely displaying one can avert the crime (it is the most-often used method of "defense" with a gun).
"That claim is proven false by the second part of the statistic I DID give."
For somebody who says "show me cause and effect", that is a pretty silly thing to say. The second statistic you gave doesn't "prove" anything at all. But if your statement "guns don't change the suicide rate" is correct, that would prove the point I made: when guns aren't available, people use other means. In order for your statement to "prove" anything, you would have to show cause-and-effect. In fact you contradict yourself in the very next sentence. You wrote: "Men use guns more often than women, and as a result suicide attempts among men are much higher..." That directly contradicts the sentence that came immediately before it: "guns don't change the suicide rate".
Maybe you should get the arguments straight in your own head before attempting to argue with somebody else.
"As for your points on crime there - they aren't actually all that meaningful - because there are several BETTER explanations for dropping crime rates."
On the contrary, they are very meaningful indeed, regardless of the actual cause. They prove, beyond doubt, that in the United States, more guns do NOT mean more crime. While correlations alone do not prove cause-and-effect, they can DISPROVE cause-and-effect. We know that more guns do not mean more crime, because according to the government's own statistics, more guns per capita -- and more guns being carried by law-abiding citizens (see the graphic of the states that have liberalized their carry laws) -- correlate to a lower crime rate. Contrary to popular belief, there is NO evidence at all that more guns mean more crime in the United States. I should also point out that during that same period, the AR15-style so-called "assault weapon" has become wildly more popular.
"More importantly while day-to-day type gun crime have gone down, large-scale gun MASSACRES have gone UP!"
Absolute bullshit. They have gone down. I don't know who you have been listening to, but if you take any two-year or longer average (INCLUDING the last year) and compare it to a similar period 20 or 30 years ago, you will find that you are very much mistaken. And it's not just mass shootings that are down: school shootings are down, too. Don't take my word for it. Look it up at the DOJ and the newer Bureau of Crime Statistics. I'm using YOUR OWN GOVERNMENT'S numbers.
"The liberal point was that gun massacres (and indeed most other gun crime) tend to use specific high-powered weaponry that can kill a great many people in a short spate of time."
And yet, if you believe your government's own statistics, those crimes are drastically lower than they were 20 years ago, even while the popularity and per-capita ownership of those same specific weapons has gone way up. Once again: I'm not claiming any cause-effect relationship here... but also again, it shows that one particular cause-effect relationship could NOT exist.
"Nobody needs THAT for self-defense. The only possible USE of a gun like that is to kill a lot of people very fast and there is absolutely NO legal situation where that is an acceptable action."
On the contrary. The Second Amendment (according to your own Supreme Court, and also the very people who created it), guarantees the right of citizens to bear military-style arms, specifically for the purpose of repelling a military if and when necessary. Again, don't take my word for it. Stop listening to Democrat propaganda, and read some actual fucking history. I have, and it's pretty damned obvious that you haven't.
"That's really, REALLY crappy! for a 15Mhz, 1287k ram device! i would have espected at least ten times that!"
I've noticed a LOT of gear lately using rechargeables where replaceable batteries would have made a lot more sense.
Take outdoor equipment for example. I've seen a lot of otherwise high-end flashlights and headlamps that use rechargeables... and I won't even look at them twice. If I'm out in the wilderness for 5 days, a regargeable is almost completely useless to me. Same with "lantern" - style devices, and just about anything else that can be battery powered, like cameras.
I mean, seriously. For some of this equipment, rechargeable batteries make no sense at all. Yet they want to sell it for $150 or whatever. I just laugh.
You're just reinforcing my point.
If one rig can produce enough to "make" $50 million a day, then the retail price is far too high.
But if, as the other poster mentioned, that is actually gross revenue rather than profit, it's a bit of a different story. I'd still be interested in what kind of margin they're operating on.
Yeah. Gross revenue is a completely different matter. But that also means it doesn't "make" quite that much, that's just how much it takes in.
And before I forget, here's another little statistic for you:
According to statistics, the most effective deterrent by far to violent crime, for a woman, is a gun. Most of the time simply displaying it prevents the crime. But if that fails (and it does, a small percentage of the time), it can actually be used. And it works.
"Or perhaps statistics like "80% of all gun owners are male, but 70% of all gun crime victims are male" - if guns protect you from crime shouldn't that statistic be EXACTLY the other way around ?"
Or statistics like: people defend themselves from violent crime with guns 20 or more times for every crime actually committed with a gun?
And quite frankly, I don't give the slightest damn about the suicide figures. In places where guns are not available (Japan is one example) people commit suicide by other means. To use your own argument: show me cause-and-effect.
"Or maybe correlation does not imply causation ... But the first set of statistics we CAN rationally evaluate..."
Correlation may not imply causation, but we have decades of statistics -- government's OWN statistics -- that show the correlation. And it probably isn't what you think.
Let me give you just a few solidly known correlations -- for which we have ample, hard-to-refute statistics -- as examples:
The areas in the United States that have the strictest firearms restrictions have had, and continue to have, the highest violent crime rates, including crimes involving guns.
The areas where restrictions are lifted tend to see a lasting reduction in the rate of crime, including violent crime. Washington D.C. is a good, specific example.
Per-capita crime in the United States, including violent crime, is HALF of what it was 20 years ago, and even less compared to 30 years ago. It has been a pretty steady and consistent decline. That includes firearms homicides. And yes, even mass shootings and school shootings are DOWN. And during that entire time, per-capita gun ownership has been going steadily UP. Not only that, but states that allow concealed carry have MULTIPLIED during that same period.
I really don't care much whether you accept a cause-effect relationship. One thing we DO know from the statistics is that one cause-effect relationship definitely does not exist: more guns do not cause more crime in the United States. Because we have more guns -- lots more guns -- but crime has dropped dramatically. So cause-and-effect or no, the correlation is pretty much indisputable. At least if you have any inclination at all to believe GOVERNMENT (DOJ and BCS) statistics.
"Perhaps leftover influence from the trolling post I read just prior to this one as well as the rather one-sided tilt to my initial statements?"
It's hard to communicate tone in a written forum like this one. Sometimes makes it easy to misunderstand what somebody else was getting at.
"This rig (where I am at now :p) makes 50 million USD a day in natural gas.. so uptime is paramount!"
If it's making that much, then natural gas is too expensive, almost by definition.
"Yep, wonder how many conservatives notice their hypocrisy as they pick up their welfare checks, their farm subsidies, or other gov help? "
Depends on what you mean by government help. But I agree, hypocrisy exists. On both "sides".
"And surely we can remove living wages! After all, children in sweatshops is a great way for the owners to rake in money. No need to feed or clothe the workers, just chain them to their benches. There are more where they came from. "
To be clear, I wasn't referring to just "living wages", but government-guaranteed living wages whether you work or not. The kind of approach that has been killing the Swiss and Sweden's economy, for example. (I have that on authority of aquaintences who live there.)
"Love your Darwinian approach. "
It's not "my" approach. I was referring to other people.
"BTW, I don't necessarily support janitors making $50 / hr same as doctors, but I don't think paying them $1 a day is right either."
Nor do I. I have to wonder why you wrote this. Making big assumptions about what I meant, rather than taking the words I wrote at face value?
"Its turned into a poker game, where big business holds all the chips, and individuals barely have enough for the blinds to even play."
Even if that were true, it is still incidental to my original comments. The law hasn't changed. If enforcement of the law is defective, then certainly that should be addressed. But that is not a flaw or change in the law, it is a problem of enforcement.
"Yes, but jokes are defined by being funny."
(A) No, jokes are defined by the intent to be funny. There are funny jokes and unfunny jokes, but they're all still jokes.
(B) "Funny" is in the eye of the beholder.
"That's a setting "Sidebar icon size". Set it to large and it is rather fat."
No, it isn't. The sidebar icon size has absolutely nothing to do with the size or appearance of the scrollbar in OS X Lion or Mountain Lion.
"So for example if the web browser is grey the controls on the webpage in color are easier to see than if the browser used color controls. Since users are familiar with the browser interface they don't need to have their attention drawn."
Yes, that is my point. However, the last sentence is incorrect. Even when you are "used to" the interface, there is a measurable (and significant) increase in the amount of time it takes to find and click a control, when they are gray vs. colored.
"This isn't change for the sake of change. It is change for the sake of ubiquitous computing."
You have misunderstood me. I wasn't referring to such assumptions. I was referring to things we KNOW, based on decades of research, about how humans interact with computers.
Examples:
We KNOW (this isn't a guess or assumption) that the eye and brain perceive "3D" controls better and faster than they do flat controls. We KNOW that the eye and brain can discern between different-colored objects better and faster than they can the same objects if they are gray. Etc. Those aren't assumptions, they are objective reality.
"Of course they are. New hardware capabilities are what should drive new interfaces."
We are not talking about the same things here. I didn't say there was any problem with "new interfaces". What I said was: it's stupid to throw away decades of research into EFFECTIVE human-computer interface, in order to build those new interfaces.
For the inevitable car analogy: you are apparently talking about building better controls for steering, gauges, etc. Which is all great. What *I* am saying is that in building those new controls, it's dumb to throw out everything we already know about how humans interact with cars.
" there's also high endurance SLC at ~1M cycles and eMLC at ~30k cycles, the downside is a much higher $/GB"
Yes, but this is Slashdot. For the most part, while many participants here may be professionals, they are using consumer-grade computer products. The causal mention by OP of enterprise-level flash is probably inappropriate.
"Let's toss out the labels again, and point out that if you continue to accomplish things you aren't an "entrenched elite". If you don't accomplish things, then by definition you are not meritorious because there is no accomplishment to which to attach merit."
This illustrates the common improper use of such terms. I think GP was saying that a "meritocracy" soon becomes anything but. Which may be true. But you can say the same thing about lots of systems: not one "communist" country was ever really communist (most were not even half-assed when it came to socialism)... they became "entrenched elites". (Which is another misnomer itself: there is nothing particularly "elite" about those in power.)
Further, "capitalist" nations have gradually been becoming less capitalist over time, as governments expanded their intervention in the economy (usually with harsh consequences). The United States has had so much government intervention in so many things it's pretty hard to call it capitalist with a straight face.
But as for the main point: reaction to fear. I think the assertions are pretty hilarious. "Liberals" today want the Government to save them from everything... from all the harsh realities of life. Everything from keeping scary guns away from them (which is about as fear-based as it gets... rational analysis of the statistics do not support that view), to making a living ("Everybody deserves a government-guaranteed livable wage!"). While conservatives tout a more Darwinist approach to such problems.
It is to laugh.
"then you clearly don't know much about the Linux kernel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Rendering_Manager"
No, I don't know all that much about the Linux kernel, but that doesn't matter very much because it was a joke. Okay, smart guy?
Yeah, I feel for you. I haven't used Visual Studio in a while, but this dumbing-down of the interfaces is not a good thing. Visual Studio is a complex set of tools, and you need all the interface help you can get.
"Scrollbars in Mountain Lion expand when you move to them. So they agree."
But they don't expand to the same size they used to be. So they don't agree.
"As for the drop off in color. I agree Apple is going very bland and very sedate. OTOH they have been getting an older user base."
Getting an older user base is reason to use MORE color, not less, because it is easier to discern different-colored objects from one another than it is gray objects. That was my point: gray objects are a step backward, from an efficient interface point of view.
"What they are thinking is they need to break that cycle."
Perhaps. But they should know better. Change for the sake of change is seldom good; it is usually destructive. It has to be an improvement, not just a change, if they want to attract customers.
I will elaborate:
Most things in the world are the way they are, not randomly, but for real reasons. They aren't always good reasons, but often they are. Sometimes, those things have evolved via the combined experience of generations of people, chipping away at a problem.
In those cases (which are very numerous, and the study of "human-computer interfaces" is one of them), change merely for the sake of change ignores the reasons for why things are, and simply throws away all those accumulated advances. Often without adding any actual improvements of their own. Many people have said Canonical's "Unity" is a classic example, and many others have said Windows 8 is another.
If you want to make changes, make them improvements, not change just for the sake of change. Otherwise you are not building, you are destroying. And in order to improve, usually you have to build on what came before... not just start fresh with "new" ideas that, if you merely bothered to look, would turn out to be things somebody else tried 30 years ago.
"And those two things mean that Microsoft application ecosystem is still Windows XP compatible"
Um... no, it's not, and hasn't been since Windows 7. I you want to run an awful lot of XP programs -- even 64-bit XP programs -- you have to use "XP Mode", which is a virtual machine, inside but separate from the main OS. And on a lot of computers, even getting XP mode to run entails jumping through hoops.
But even so, the basic interface in Windows 7 is still the same. Because it works. New hardware capabilities, etc. are not an excuse to throw away well-established, and well-justified, human interface principles.
"The narrowness of the scroll bars is totally irrelevant because any modern Apple input device lets you scroll with two fingers on the mouse."
It is VERY FAR from irrelevant. For one thing, the built-in gestures don't allow you to scroll all the way up or down. For another, scrolling using gestures, especially with "inertia", is slow and inaccurate in long documents. You end up hunting back and forth. With the scrollbar, you can to to a spot in the document with relative speed and precision.
But regardless, I'm not "blaming" Apple for anything. I was simply making the observation that the changes they made are contrary to well-known human interface principles.
"Not exactly apples to apples."
The landscape may have changed, but the law has not. I was speaking to the law.
Maybe he meant something else, but it makes me nervous when somebody mentions "drm" and "Linux kernel" in the same sentence.
"Tying genetic characteristics to economic advancement is an extremely iffy proposition, since there are far stronger fluctuations from historically contingent accidents."
From the abstract, it does appear that the authors suggest a cause, rather than mere correlation. That might have been unwise on their part.